Into the Flames of Veinica
by VanG Ziggy ZA
Summary: A few months after the Factory unsuccessfully attempted to kill her, Robin must now deal with a nutjob with powers that could be even greater than her own! Story to be updated late Summer '06!
1. Default Chapter

Author's notes: This is my first fan fiction story written about the Witch Hunter Robin Universe. I hope you enjoy it. This is just chapter one, of a twenty part story.

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Into the Flames of Night

The cloaked figure rushed through the dark alley, taking a few precious seconds to glare behind him. She didn't seem to be behind him. That was good, he had lost her then. He pulled the hood from his head, and slumped back against a dark red brick wall. _What did she want of me?_ He felt his heart pound against his chest as he leaned against the wall, and peered in the direction of the empty street. San Francisco wasn't supposed to be this isolated.

The man pulled his hood over his face again, and slipped out of the alley, slinking in the darkness as he walked. He covered a number of blocks before arriving at a church, though of which denomination he wasn't sure, he never entered any religious structures, since he was considered by many a witch.

It wasn't his fault; he hadn't made any deals with the devil for his powers, hadn't studied any books of the occult. He had simply been born with his powers. His parents were both scientists, and had both worked for a world wide organization called Solomon, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

He was sixteen when his powers had manifested the first time. He discovered that he could levitate things just by thinking about it. At first it frightened him, and his parents gave him stern warnings not to use his powers at all. His mother became even more possessive of him than she had been in the past, and then she had been smothering.

The church was dark and quiet. There seemed to be a massive stillness in the air, one that snuffed out life itself. There were no statues of holy men or women, the windows were dull and black. In the far front of the church there was a small alter made out of wood, and a tiny cross hanging far above it, but that was about all there was.

He dropped into a pew and knelt down, saying a quick prayer to God for help. A minute passed and then another. The quiet was suffocating. The cloaked figure looked at his wristwatch and swallowed. It was exactly at ten o'clock when he could hear the sounds of high heels walking up the steps toward the church.

The man threw his cloak into the pew and rushed to the front of the church, as he ran he glared at a few of the other pews and tossed them toward the back. There was a flash of light, and the wooden pews burst into flames, and slammed across the walls.

"Who the hell are you? Why are you after me?" the man wailed. The moonlight that filtered into the building illuminated his black hair, giving him a kind of shadow halo around his head.

"Because you need to be hunted for your crimes against humanity," she said, her voice low, and hushed. It was young sounding, but full of power.

"What crimes?" he wanted to be brave, but his response came out in a withered whelp.

"You are a witch, a killer of human's, the pure breed of God's holy children," she snarled.

"What gives you the right to judge me?" he snarled, attempting to toss another pew in her direction. Like the others, it exploded into flames and was sent sailing into the wall. "You are a witch yourself."

Her eyes widened with horror, and she ground her teeth. "I am no witch, my abilities have been given to my by my Heavenly Father, to hunt the damned like you, to purge you from His holy world."

Now the man began to chuckle and slow rose to his feet. "Earth is holy? I'd like to see where you see that. There's nothing but crime, corruption, and sin that I see."

"That's because you are a witch," she said coolly again. "The fact that you can not see the perfection and grace in His world proves you are not worthy to live in it."

"None of us are truly worthy," he said with a tired sigh. "We're all sinners, all flawed."

Her breath became irregular as she stared at him, her pupils dilating, "You are a liar and a seed of the original liar, Lucifer, you _must _be purged, you and all like you." With a thought, she bore down on him, and engulfed the man in flames. A few moments later, all that remained of him was a few ashes.

She smirked and turned around as she walked away. How ironic, that one of the Devil's children should taste the flames of punishment inside a church. It was as if he had been seeking chastisement. And if he had, then what further proof did she need of his guilt?

The young hunter walked out of the church, hailed a cab and rushed home to her apartment, eager to pray to her Heavenly Father, and inform Him that another witch had died tonight.

On the other side of the world, Robin Sena sat in a counter, eating her sandwich quietly. It was a few months past since she had left Solomon, after their rouge director had tried to hunt her down, in order to keep human blood pure. She still wasn't sure if she had caused the explosion that had gone up the elevator, that had taken his life or not. She had felt an immense amount of hate when he had escaped, so much so that she had said numerous Rosaries in penance for it.

The restaurant where she was eating did not really deserve to be called that. It was just a tiny little diner, shaped like a cubicle. Bright oranges, and sky blue colors danced around the walls, floors, and roof, and even the tables, as upbeat nineteen fifties music flowed through the air, trying to soothe or let people reminisce about the good old times.

"The good old times," she said barely audible to those around her. Her dark brown eyes looked down into her cherry coca-cola, and she sighed, running her fingers through her light brown hair, which was flowing over her shoulders. Even though she normally slept with her hair down, or when she was underground during her hunt, during the day Robin had her tied up, in what most people called a bicycle design.

The clothes she was wearing were a nuisance too. Normally dressed in her long flowing Victorian style dress, colored in mud brown and dark brick reds, to continue hiding from those who wanted her dead, Robin agreed with her protector to dress like a normal teenage girl. Not too normal, of course, being raised in a convent, Robin never liked attire that was TOO revealing. Showing her belly button was about as far as it went.

Her protector, Amon, was a large man with dark black hair. They had been partners, up until the Factory betrayed them, and hunter her. For a few days, due to his hatred of his mother, and of all witches, they were rivals as well. Right now he sat, leaning against the back of the stool, arms crossed, his face in a scowl. His face rarely ever wore a smile. It was like as if Michelangelo had sculpted his oval shaped head from stone.

Amon's cell phone rang, and the two of them frowned at each other. Who could know that they had been hiding in Buenos Aires? Amon cautiously answered it, as if it had venom that would pour into his ear if he picked it up to quickly. "Yes?" he snapped in agitation. A few seconds later, his eyes went wide, and then he nodded. "I see." He clicked it off and looked at her.

"What is it?" she asked, leaning forward.

"Get your things; we're going back to Japan."


	2. The Kindling

Okay, here is chapter two! Hope you folks are reviewing so this thirty year old man knows his limitations, and how to better them!

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: The Kindling

Solomon was founded to know and better understand witches, people who seemed to have supernatural powers. Kin Tokutoyu knew this as much as any other law enforcer in Tokyo did. Kin was six feet, with short light brown hair. His eyes were dark brownish green, and slanted to the shape of an almond. He wore a light blue suit, and dark brown cowboy boots that he had gotten when he went to visit relatives in Texas.

The Solomon headquarters, called the Raven's Flat, in Japan looked like a large mansion to some, and an apartment complex to others. It was dark and brooding, despite the guard at the gate, who was constantly reading his horoscope. Kin hadn't liked him originally, but as he came to talk to the man, found he wasn't that bad.

A young, blonde Japanese woman walked passed him in the hall and smiled. "You planning on going in to work, or are you just going to stand there all day?" Yurika Doujima looked at him and smiled. She was four inches shorter than him, but taller than most Japanese women.

"I was just thinking," he said, softly. He turned and looked into her bright blues eyes. She giggled and waltzed by him a little. "You've heard about the case in the States, right?"

She stopped and frowned for a microsecond. "The loner hunter who's killing witches over there?"

"There are rumors that, that person might have at one time been involved with Solomon, here in Japan. Or in the very least, somewhere in the Orient," he said, his voice growing lower with each word. Kin had heard very nasty things about people who died for saying too much against Solomon.

That didn't surprise Doujima very much; she knew all about Solomon's shading dealings, or at least Takuma Zaizen, the former director of the STN-J, and his lackeys at the Factory. There were times she wondered why they still hunted witches and set them to that place, but all her resources told her not to fret. She shook her head and looked down at her feet. No, she told herself, the bad guys are all dead, or in jail.

"Look, don't worry so much about it," she said, resuming her award winning smile. She flipped her fingers through her hair and gave him a wink. "Now, there's a meeting we have to get to, and then there's a shopping mall calling my name. So, cowboy, let's get moving." Before he could protest, she took his arm and pulled him into the main office of the STN-J, Solomon's arms, ears, and "guns" in Japan.

In the "conference room" there was a long oval table, with a huge holographic screen with computers underneath them. Sitting to the right of the screen, Michael Lee looked up and waved them over. Already there were the other members of the STN-J, Haruto Sakaki, and Miho Karasuma, the unquestioned field leader of the group ever since someone named Amon had vanished three months before.

Kin sat next to Michael and nodded. Of everyone here, the older man held a deeper connection to the teenage hacker the most. After all, they had both been recruited in very similar ways.

"I'm glad everyone is here," said Miho Karasuma. The woman was in her early twenties, just celebrating a birthday last week, but looked at least twelve years older than that. Her voice was calming and gently, but held an iron twinge of control and power in it. She nodded at Michael and he began punching a few buttons. A picture of a Japanese man in his late fifties popped up. His hair was raven black, and so were his eyes. The only thing betraying his age were the wrinkles on his cheeks and forehead.

"This is Hashi Motokita, fifty eight years old, five foot, nine inches, two hundred and fifty pounds. He runs a charity for war orphans in the southern districts of Tokyo, but,"

"But it's a front to bring in more thugs for his little 'family'," Kin said nodding. He knew all about this dangerous old man. He was filthy rich, and kept lawyers in constant attack mode, anytime the Tokyo police got to close for comfort. He was wanted in over a dozen countries, and those were the one's who were brave enough to speak out against him. All in all, Hashi Motokita was a very dangerous and powerful member of the Yakuza.

Michael typed a few more buttons and a new screen popped up. "He is also a witch. His powers began to awaken shortly around five years ago. That's around the time he started his climb up the criminal ladder."

"So, what exactly is his power?" Haruto asked. He was three years older than Michael, the same age as Doujima, and Kin was pretty sure that the two of them were an item. They liked going off together after work a lot. Haruto leaned forward on the table and rested his chin on the backs of his hands.

"We don't know," Karasuma said, shaking her head. Looking at Kin, she sighed as he shrugged. Well, being a simple police officer until now, what was _he_ supposed to know except what the law told him.

Director Kosaka walked into the room, his brown eyes narrowing. He looked a little like a Japanese Moe, from the Three Stooges, with a chrome dome, and a mustache. His attitude was nothing like the ringleader of the slap happy trio, however.

After Zaizen had turned against the STN-J and Solomon, and had died in their attack near the Factory, the job of Director was handed over to this man, who up until then was only known as Chief Kosaka. He had an extreme fondness for coffee, one that perhaps was unhealthy and unnatural, but for some reason was always being reminded that the cup was hot. No one knew how who dropped his name to the superiors, but Michael highly suspected Doujima was responsible. She always had a giggle when the man walked in to a meeting, one she tried to hide as soon as it had come. It made further since that he was promoted thanks to the girl, as her connections would allow her to pull the necessary strings.

"From what files I have been given by the proper authorities," he began, "it almost appears that he has a power to give of strong mental suggestions."

"Mental suggestions?" Karasuma asked, with a frown. She almost asked what proper connections he had made, but then, she knew he was the Director, and that he knew law enforcers who were higher up the ladder than who Kin knew.

"For instance, if he sent a suggestion to you, that you were having a heart attack, then you'd actually think you were having one. If he gave you a suggestion to give him the number to your bank account, then you would do it."

"It would explain why so many people died in mysterious circumstances," Michael said under his breath.

"And how he can recruit so many people to work for him, or how he has gotten so rich, in such a short amount of time," Kin said with a nod. A sliver of ice ran down his spine. This was all still so new to him, and frightening. The thought that some one could manipulate electricity, of ignite another person into a ball of flames, or could simply think someone to death, was horrific.

"Okay, so we know who he is, and how he uses his powers, so then, all we need to know is, how do we catch him?" Haruto said, stroking his chin.

"He likes to attend the opera a lot," Michael said, punching a few more buttons. "The security force he takes with him there is armed to the teeth, but much smaller than what he normally travels with."

"He probably figures with his powers, and the weapons the bodyguards use, there's no real reason to take an army for protection." Doujima said.

Kin nodded in approval. "And he probably does business while watching the opera, no doubt. A huge army might scare off potential partners who aren't as aware of his criminal background as most are."

"Like foreign companies, and dignitaries," Michael agreed working busily at the keyboard. "So the best time to get at him, is then." He looked at the computer, and grinned wickedly. "And we don't have to worry about innocents getting in the way, because he always arrives at the opera house before anyone else arrives."

Karasuma leaned forward and looked at the screen. "It appears that his security force fans the place for any bugs or bombs."

"How does he get away with that?" Kin asked.

"He owns the building," Michael said with a lopsided grin.

"Okay, then let's start putting together a plan, and nab this guy, before he hurts anyone else," Director Kosaka said. "Karasuma, I'm leaving it up to you." The Director turned and walked out of the room, sipping a hot cup of coffee, and swearing as some of it spilt on his fingers.

No sooner had Michael left the conference room, and sat back down at his comfortable chair, in front of his own laptop computer, when a new email popped up in front of him. The teenager frowned for a moment, as he listened to his music over his headphones, and nearly considered deleting it. But those seven words kept taunting at him, pleading with him to click on the mail link.

Being a hacker of monster skills, Michael shook the curiosity far behind and deleted it. A few moments after he did, they popped back on the screen. The odd dance continued for over five minutes, until out of frustration Michael swore out loud and clicked on it. As soon as he did, his eyes widened to the point of leaping out of his sockets. He quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and reread the mail. Michael reread it a third time, and then deleted the mail, double checking to make sure that no one could trace it.

He pulled the headphones from his head and raced over to the Director's room, for permission to leave the building. Even the Zaizen was dead, and worm chow, he **still** needed permission to ask to leave his cage. Fortunately for him Director Kosaka was much more understanding than Director Zaizen had been. Michael gave an excuse that he needed some fresh air, and that he'd be back in an hour or two. The Director reluctantly gave him permission, provided that check in if he needed more than two hours, and that he stay out no later than four hours.

Michael went to the garage and then grabbed a scooter, and headed off, to his rendezvous, his heart pounding in his chest. Could it be possible? Could they still be alive, like he had thought? Only Amon had such secret access to his hidden email address. And those seven words! He thought back to what the older man had once said, in an attempt to bait him to do some background work for him.

**I KNOW OF AN AWESOME WEB SITE. **If it were not Amon, then Michael might be walking into a trap, but that was a chance that he absolutely had to take.

Unbeknownst to Michael, a set of powerful eyes, were watching him ride off. Kin had been told by the Director to follow the boy, as he was concerned for him. Director Kosaka knew there was something wrong with Michael when he burst into the room, and said he held a hunch about who Michael was going to visit, and if he was right, Kin was to try and bring them back, to help the STN-J again.

Kin didn't know what was going on, or who he was supposed to re-recruit back to the "cause" but being a devoted officer, he would do his duty to his superior. Slowly he slinked into his black sedan, and closed the door, he turned the key and listened as the motor revved, and then pulled out of the parking lot, and followed the teenage hacker into the night.

On the other side of the world, an alarm clock that read two o'clock in the morning blared out, shattering the silence of the darkened room. The hunter opened her raven colored eyes and threw the covers off of her body, somersaulting out of bed. Her muscles were tight and firm; and a bead of sweat trickled down her forehead.

It had been two days since she had sent the foul witch to his punishment in the church in San Francisco. Two days without a hunt. Her soul hungered for more justice to hand out, but despite all of her massive prayers, her self sacrifices, there had been no word of another to hunt, just yet.

She began to pace back and forth, mentally chanting her mantra as she closed her mind. After twenty minutes, she turned toward the corner of the room, and spied her long thorn whip. She bit her lip, and hesitated for only a second, before she lifted it from its resting place, heated it with her mind, and then began to slash down at her bare legs and feet with it. Her body screamed with the pain, but she shut it out, as the whip struck her again and again. The hunter had been trained from a long line of flagellants, religious sects, who believed in purifying themselves through pain.

An hour later, a different kind of hunger filled her body, and she quickly got dressed, and knelt before the statue of an angel holding a fiery sword, before leaving her hotel room. She marched with a steady pace toward the elevator, and rode it to the lobby. Leaving the hotel, she hoped on board her motorcycle and raced off to a local diner that sold all you could eat salad.

There were seven or eight people here, from different age groups, eating and talking quietly amongst themselves. The diner was a long rectangle in shape, almost like a passenger cab in a train, and was colored in dim lights of blue and green. The owner liked his clients and regulars calmed at this time of night, and soft Gregorian chants were played over and over. It seemed to calm most of the people, with the exception of the hunter. She narrowed her dark raven eyes, and felt the muscles in her body tighten as the sounds of the monks flowed through her ears.

The hunter chose her regular dark corner and ordered her salad, nibbling at it her thoughts turned to the hunt. Her body began to tighten again, and her eyes turned to the denizens of the diner. Perhaps one of them was a witch? Maybe all of them were. Her heart began to pound at the thought of bringing justice to so many demon seed at once that she nearly wet herself.

The hunter cast the thoughts of excitement from her mind, and bit her fork so hard that it almost cracked some of her teeth. Her mission was not one of excitement and enjoyment, but one of justice. There could be no worldly pleasure of any kind for her, until all witches were burned and sent screaming for hell.

The hunter finished her meal, eight plates full of salad, with very little dressing, and paid for it an hour later. She walked outside, very aware of two pairs of eyes ogling her. Her body was still tense, but her reaction time was slow, as the meal passed through her digestion track. She barely managed to get to her cycle, when a pair of strong hands grabbed her by her shoulders and yanked her into an alley, into further darkness.

"Hey there, gorgeous, why the rush," a foul smelling biker said, flashing decaying teeth, and reeking of alcohol."

"Why don't you join us for some fun," added his even smeller companion, eyeballing her up and down. "You must be uncomfortable in those clothes of yours. Let me help you out." With a flick of his wrist the second man pulled out a switchblade and held it against her shirt.

"I will not be touched by man, or witch," she said, her voice barely audible. Even as cold steel slid down her body, she did not twitch. "My body belongs to the Lord."

"Looks like we have a fighter, a girl with no fear," the first man said, bread crumbs stuck in his uncombed beard. "Or maybe a little 'good girl' who has wondered to far into the dark forest?"

"Let's teach her some, then," the second man, tattooed from head to toe cackled. He forced his lips on hers for a second, and then pulled away as she blew hot flames into his body.

He reeled back, attempted to scream as he clutched at his throat. It glowed like a jack-o-lantern's maw, and he dropped rolling in agony. With a thought she ignited his clothes, and covered him in flames.

"What the hell did you do to him, you little bitch," the first man roared. He leapt at her, and slashed at her bare arm with his own knife. The hunter looked down at the blood dripping from her body and stared back blankly at the biker.

He blinked at her, and slashed again. Again she did nothing but stare at the blood. The biker took a step back and swallowed hard as she stepped in between him and his fallen friend, who was lying lifeless in the fire. "Who, what the hell are you?"

"I am God's hunter, His servant. I normally hunt demon seed, witches who would prey on humans, but you and your friend are just as bad as they are." She took a step forward and narrowed her eyes. "You would prey on the flesh of your fellow humans, for a few moments of pleasure." She took another step toward him, and then shot out a flame toward his feet. Her body is tightening again, and she forced excitement to the back of her mind.

"Bitch, you are going to wish that you had never met me," he hissed, pulling out a gun from the back of his pants. She narrowed her eyes even further and he felt the metal of the gun melt in his hands. He dropped it, and screamed as it went of, sending a bullet into the back of his knee. He dropped to the ground and swallowed. "Please, miss, I'm sorry. Look, if its money you want, I can get you loads of it." He smiled and swallowed again. "We have it in our van, just got it from a connivance store.

There was another blast of fire, as her eyes became slits. "So you're thieves as well?"

"Look, you don't understand, my old woman, she won't back off with her nagging, so I thought I'd make her happy with a little bit of cash," he said, his eyes growing wide, as he held up a hand and showed her his wedding ring.

"And you are unfaithful, as well," she snarled. "People like you are a bane on society, perhaps not as bad as witches, but disgusting all the same. It will be a pleasure to erase you from the existence, and send you to your eternal punishment."

The biker screamed with horror, and managed to pull himself to his feet, hobbling down the alley. With what strength he had, he tossed a few trash cans in her direction, as she walked slowly with determination in his direction. He continued to limp toward an abandoned building and closed the door. He swallowed and leaned against it, his heart pounding against his chest. He licked his lips, and put his hand into his pocket, for his cell phone.

He began dialing it, and narrowed his eyes in the darkness, and dim lights trickling into the building through small holes in the boarded up wood, he began to dial the phone. "Come on, come on damn it."

The lights seemed to grow brighter as it rang, and then he could smell cooking oak. Something in his mind snapped, the boards in the door were made of oak! _Shit!_

He rushed forward and covered his head as the door collapsed inward, swallowed in flames. The hunter walked through it, and seemed to stare into his very soul. How the hell could she see him in the darkness? Was she some kind of deranged mutant? A military experiment? What was she talking about witches for?

Collecting the last amounts of courage he had, the biker grabbed a two by four, and rushed forward; swinging and screaming like a maniac. The tactic took her a little by surprise, and she sway back and forth, growing very close to the flames. He thrust forward, and struck her in the stomach, snarling with satisfaction as she bent over. He held the board over his head and sent it down onto her head, or he would have, but she looked up, and set the board ablaze. The biker screamed, and dropped his weapon, scanning the room for anything else that he might use.

The hunter regained the offensive, and turned her sight on every item in the room. Everything was on fire; nothing was able for use against her now. She turned her gaze back on the frightened man and scowled, "I would pray now. Where you are human, perhaps God will forgive you, your sins, and you might yet see salvation." He spat at her and flicked her off, and for the first time, she laughed. "I figured as much. Enjoy the flames." With a thought she ignited his clothes, and then sent him into the flames with a round house kick to the head.

She leapt out of the building, and slinked into the shadows and the fire department raced forward to the fire. She snarled at first, why should such despicable humans be saved? What worth were their lives? But then she calmed herself. Not all humans were evil, in fact only a small margin were ranked with the witches. Innocent people could be hurt by the flames, something she did not want if it could be helped.

The hunter knelt, said her prayers to her guardian angel, and to the Lord, and rose to her feet. This wasn't the kind of hunt that she wanted, but at least she was allowed to do some good with her powers. She could relax for the next day or so. And by then, perhaps, she would be given a better challenge.

Michael pulled up to Harry's restaurant and got off his scooter and entered it. The middle aged man looked up and smiled at him warmly. The teenager smiled at him and took a seat.

"What can I do for you today, Michael?"

The teenager looked at the menu and shook his head. "Just a glass of water, and maybe some soup." Harry nodded and took the menu, as he walked back toward the kitchen. It was quiet here, tonight. Of course Harry's wasn't known for a wild and crazy time, but still of all the patrons that normally came in, there were only two other people. And neither of them were who Michael was waiting for.

He stroked his chin, and began to wonder if he should tell the middle aged man anything. Robin was like a daughter to him, and he had taken the news of her "death" very hard. Or at least he appeared to. Somehow Michael always thought Harry knew just as much as he did, that neither Amon, nor Robin was truly dead like what Doujima thought.

Harry snapped him out of his thoughts as he walked back to the table with the glass of water and the bowl of soup. Michael thanked him and quickly downed the meal, glancing ever once in a while at his watch. One hour in a half had passed, and still there was no sign. Perhaps he had gotten the message wrong; perhaps he wasn't supposed to have walked through into Harry's. What if the old man hadn't known that Robin was still alive and she didn't want to give him a stroke by simply walking through the door. Or what if the place was being watched? It was no secret that Harry's was a popular place for Robin to go and eat, or even any of the others who worked at the STN-J.

A little bit after two hours, Michael sighed and stood up. All the other patrons of Harry's had left, and he alone was in the small eatery. He considered calling the Director for more time, but decided against it. There was no reason to make people any more curious than what he might have already had. He paid for the meal, and started to walk out of the eatery, his lip hanging low.

"You forgot to ask if they were already here," Harry asked, with a sly smile. The teenager turned around so fast, it was as if he had been staring at the older man the whole time. There was a playful twinkle in Harry's eyes, and he chuckled. He walked quickly toward the boy and bent over to his ear.

"Amon thought you might get over anxious and blurt out if they were here," he whispered. "He told me someone was going to order water and soup, but not who." He bent back and winked, craning his head to the back of his restaurant. "They're back there."

Michael felt the blood drain from his skin. His brown eyes grew wide, and he nearly buckled on his own slender frame. Running his fingers through his light brown, blondish hair, he managed to pull himself to his feet. So it was true, they _were_ alive.

Just as Harry was leading the startled young teenager into the back, the doors to his place burst open, and a hard breathing man stood, staring at them. Harry frowned and took a step back, he had never seen this man before, but apparently, judging from Michael's reaction, _he_ had.

"Kin! What are you doing here?" Michael squealed. "Let me guess, Director Kosaka told you to tail me, right?"

"Yes, he did. He told me that he thought you might have come into contact with some old friends, and that I was to 'ask' them to come back and help out on a case or two."

Someone sighed behind them, and a tall man in an overcoat pushed the kitchen door open and bayed for them all to come to the back. Harry sighed and pushed the teenager and his coworker into the back of the room, and introduced Kin to Amon and a small, teenage girl with odd hair, and brilliant green eyes. Kin knew it was Robin before the introduction. Everyone at Raven's Loft constantly spoke so admirably about her, that he would have recognized her in the crowded streets in Bombay, India, or Los Angeles, or any other massive large and crowded city.

"I must say, it is a pleasure to finally meet you, although I must say, it is a little shocking to see you standing here, and not in your graves," Kin said with a smile.

For the first time in a long time, Amon sported a smile. "Graves? Doujima, right," he asked, turning to Michael. The teenage boy smiled and nodded, supported by a few light chuckles by Harry.

"She is so romantic in her thoughts," Robin said with her own smile.

"She probably saw us going up in a blaze of glory," Amon said.

"Wait until you come walking into the STN-J, her eyes are going to bulge out of her eyes," Kin said.

Amon sighed and shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not going to be that simple." The officer frowned and looked at him. "Robin and I do not totally trust the STN-J, not yet anyway."

"Hey, we're your friends," Michael snapped, his face showing the pain of the older man's words.

"You, are our friends, and so are some of the others, but I don't trust many more than our little circle, and I'm not ready for us just to come in waltzing into the hornet's nest."

"There are many people who would still love to kill Robin, for what she is," Harry said, assuring both Michael and Kin.

"But we can tell the other's," Michael said.

"We have to at least tell Director Kosaka," Kin snapped. "Even if you don't come back, we have our duty."

Amon walked up to the other man and sized him up. "Do you have any idea who it is that you are working for?" He narrowed his eyes and began circling him. "Are you prepared to sell your soul to the devil himself, if the time comes, or have you already done so?"

"Look, I'm only doing what I was told," Kin snarled. "I work for Director Kosaka, and the STN-J, as for selling my soul to the devil, I'm not entirely sure he exists."

"Chief Kosaka is a very good man," Robin said with a nod, not seeming to register that the man had been promoted. "But unfortunately he's not the top of the chain in the leadership of the STN-J."

"Director Zaizen may be dead," Amon said, "but there are worse people still very much in power that would love to see us dead." He scanned the room, "All of us."

"Michael," Robin said softly. "For the time being, it might be wise for you not to saying anything." She turned to Kin, "Or you either Mr. Tokutoyu, please for your own safety." There was something in her eyes, a benign power of benevolence that Kin could not deny. Kin wasn't a Catholic, like this girl was, he wasn't even Christian, but looking into her soft features, he could see a saint in them. A saint that try as he might, he could not deny.

"Very well," he said, totally defeated. He put his hands in his pockets, and listened as they told them that they were staying with Amon's brother, Nagira somewhere in the city.

"We'll be in touch again, Michael," Amon said, "when the time is right. There is a dangerous rogue hunter out there, we're not sure who she is, or where she is, but we know it is only a matter of time before she comes here. Nagira's sources have made that much clear. Once she finds out about Robin, we might all be in danger."

"Which is why we decided to come back to Tokyo," Robin said, "we might have a better chance of beating her as a unit than apart."

"I see," Michael said. He looked at Kin, who smiled smugly. The officer had always thought there was something going on with that hunter in the States, and it looked like he was right. They said their good byes, and went their separate ways for now. It wouldn't be long before they would be thrust together again.

It would be sooner than any of them would ever suspect.


	3. The White Smoke Shall Rise

Okay, here's chapter three, I hope I still have all of your attention. You won't find the Hunter mentioned much in this chapter, except for a tiny scene. By the way, could somebody tell me the names of Nagira's employees? That is one of the things I could not find, and I don't have the series on DVD like I had wanted originally. Thanks in advance.

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: And the White Smoke Shall Rise.

"I can hardly believe they are still alive," Michael whispered to Kin, slowly eating a donut as he looked at his computer screen. It had only been four days since he had met with Amon and Robin at Harry's.

"I suggest that you keep your voice down if you want to keep it a secret," Kin snarled at the younger man. The former police officer and newest member of the STN-J looked at his paperwork, and frowned. Between the revelation of Robin and Amon still being alive and the STN-J's hunt for the Witch Hashi Motokita, he hadn't slept in a while. The group nearly got Motokita during a stakeout at the opera house, but someone seemed to have tipped him off that they were there.

_Kosaka is a very good man_, _but unfortunately he's not the top of the chain in the leadership of the STN-J. _That's what that girl, Robin had said. Amon had also said that there were worse people still in power in the STN-J and Solomon itself, than what Zaizen had been.

Kin frowned and felt his pulse race. That man, Amon, who did he think he was? _Are you prepared to sell your soul to the devil himself, if the time comes, or have you already done so?_ Kin didn't know much about the man, but the few minutes had spent chatting with him hadn't been very fun.

_Who is he, to be judging me, anyway?_

The office was mostly empty except for Michael, and Kin, and a few people who were scrambling around like human ants, busy to please the queen and the colony. In a way Kin felt he should be happy that he was not working in a cubicle, that his work space was open and allowed him space to breathe.

Then a creeping sensation trickled up his back. He turned around and looked at a dozen gray silver surveillance cams. They were supposed to be there to guard and protect the workers, to protect people like Kin. But that damned man's words kept flowing through his mind. _There are worse people still very much in power that would love to see us dead. _

"Hey, I wasn't that loud," Michael snapped, still as quietly as he could. "It just that I haven't," he stopped and followed Kin's gaze to the cameras. Suddenly a tinge of dread, and the feeling of having the conscious computer overlord, Skynet, from the Terminator movies, watching his every move, and listening to his every word, flooded him with fear.

Michael reached over for a piece of paper and wrote, "I see what you mean, I'll shut up now," on it, and handed it over to Kin. The older man chuckled and turned to the teenager, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Too bad that wasn't written by Doujima, that would be a first," he whispered. Michael looked at him for a moment and smirked.

"What would be a first is getting her to show up on time, stay when she's supposed to, and keep her away from the shopping malls." The two men laughed wildly for a few minutes, before standing up. It was late and neither had eaten dinner yet. Turning off their computers, and placing their papers in a safety room, they bid each other good night and walked toward their separate destinations.

Two crimson eyes watched the pair leave the office, from their owners own office, high above the war room. The shadow's cameras were keeping track of each and every word that they had said, tracked their body temperatures as they looked around at the cameras, and watched them leave for the night.

The crimson eyes seemed to brim with hellish, demonic delight as the men's body temperatures seemed to grow high, as their voices seemed to drop to subhuman audible levels. They feared what might be heard, and that was good. The individual could use fear, had used it many times in the past, and it proved in the end to be very acceptable.

The large, shadowy figure still wasn't sure who, or what the men were talking about with a one hundred percent determination, but it could guess. And there were other shadows who were above it, who would enjoy their servant's little bits and pieces of information.

Speaking of which, the shadow thought, as it picked up a cell phone and traced its fingers over the numbers it needed to access, it was time to move the operation into a new direction. Its overseers had ordered it to remove a certain obstacle, in their plans, and it had placed an agent in that obstacle's court.

It waited for a moment, and then the agent answered the phone. "It's time to clip the Olive branch," it hissed. It waited for acknowledgement, and then closed the phone. The black night of the Hunters, and the future of a new, purer, and more enriched humanity, was only three months from arriving. Once the shadow knew that the "Devil's Child" was alive, it would contact another agent, one that had been thrilled with the slaughter of the "animals" in the American Continents, and have her arrive to begin the ultimate hunt, though it probably figured that, with no major contacts in two weeks, the agent would get bored of that publian sewer infected land, and come home to a more civilized people, to look for the devils that hid in human skin here. Either way was fine for the shadow. The agent, like all the others was an instrument, one that would bring ever lasting peace.

Robin sat in the chair, watching the television. It was focused on the Vatican and the pope, or rather than man who had been pope. Yesterday Pope Zephyrinus II had been found dead at his desk, his face overblown like a ripe pumpkin. It was obvious that he had been poisoned, but no one could imagine who would do such a thing, as it was an inside job.

The fifteen year old woman sat, her fingers frantically passing each golden Rosary bead from one to the next. She remembered meeting the seventy year old man, as Father Juliano introduced her to him one time when he visited her at the convent. He had been such a sweet person, very loving and understanding of people's problems and differences. The right wing elites felt very betrayed with his election, but Robin knew that there were those on the left wing who felt dismayed when Pope Philip would not reverse millennia of Catholic teachings on certain positions, despite all the new invocations he was bringing forth. He was called the pope of the 21st Century, with the heart of a Middle Ages Pontiff, one that would make Leo X, pope during the beginnings of Protestant Reform, proud.

"I just don't understand," she mussed between Hail Mary's. "Who could have killed him?"

"Robin," Amon snapped, his dark chocolate brown eyes glaring at her, "you need to focus." His tone was tight and strong a steel. The young witch turned her eyes up at him and cringed for one of the first times since they met. Then she steadied herself, and glared back.

Amon turned from her and sighed. Witches weren't really mystical, as they were mutations, mutations that had been living right besides "normal" people, for at least two thousand, five hundred years. People thought at first they were gods, and thus many corrupted witches decided that it benefited everyone to take that title. Soon, as the first wave of the mutant humans began to die off, and Judeo-Christian came to center stage, and they labeled the remaining mutants with the devil. A thousand in a half years later, religious influence began to decline, and as persecution ended, the mutant humans began to grow in size and power once again. Still, Amon was positive that humanity was not ready to learn that eventually they would be replaced in the power structure as much as the Neanderthal man thought of the appearance of Homo sapiens. Except the Neanderthals did not have any weapons to try to whack Homo sapiens off the stage and existence completely.

"Robin, I'm sorry about the pope. I'm sure he was a good person," Amon began.

"Yes, he was," Robin snapped, her emerald green eyes seemed incandescent with righteous fury.

"Robin, calm down," Amon snapped. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we have to remember, there are greater dangers to _us_, also. I wont do you any good to be melancholic for him, if our enemies us that, to kill you too."

Robin looked down at her feet and sighed. She was mad at what he had said, but there was truth in his words. She would have to wait and figure out one mystery at a time if she was going to stay sane, or alive. "Allow me to finish my prayers first, then I will join you," she said in a low whisper.

Amon looked at her for a moment, and then smiled, "Very well." He turned and walked out of the room, leaving the girl to her Hail Mary's and Our Father's. He walked down the hall, and opened another door, leaving behind the meticulously clean medical looking apartments and corridors, and into the littered, and smoke filled air of his step brother's office.

Nagira looked a little like his younger brother, but there were still enough differences that distinguished them from the other. Amon almost always wore black, and seemed to have a black cloud follow him wherever he went, where Nagira seemed to have a massively sick affliction to the color white, and seemed so upbeat and laid back that one would think he was doing nothing back smoking bogies, and gone so much from the office, his employee's thought that he was constantly in the bummer tent. Amon's hair was long, and hung from his shoulders at times, where Nagira sported a very Elvis like hairdo.

"So, how is our little princess?" he said in his laid back tone. He smiled and leaned back against a wall, leaning his legs on his desk.

"Boss, will you grow up!" his female assistant snarled, looking as if she were suffering from both labor and hemorrhoids at the same time.

Nagira looked over at her and flashed one of his famous toothy smiles. Sometimes it seemed to Amon that he enjoyed driving her nuts. "Relax okay?"

"How can we relax when we're harboring fugitives," she snarled, her skin growing red.

Nagira waved her off, and turned back to Amon. "So little brother, you never answered my question, how is Robin doing?"

"Fine for the most part," Amon said bluntly.

"But. . .?" Despite his best attempts there were very little things that Amon could hide from his step brother. There were a few things that the younger man could keep quiet about, things he held tight to his chest, but mostly his elder sibling could unlock his mind in ways others simply could not.

"_But_, she seems preoccupied these last two days with the death of the pope," the other man said with a sigh.

"The mind of a paranoid," Nagira sighed. "She sees enemies in every shadow that crosses her path."

"And you wouldn't?" Amon snapped. "Or have you forgotten who the enemy is?"

Nagira pulled his legs off of his desk and stood to stare his brother in the eyes in such a flash of movement, he could have been accused of having supernatural powers. "There aren't many things I forget, though I'd very much like to," he said in a hard and tightly controlled whisper.

Amon stared at his brother for a moment more, fully aware of Nagira's employees watching the exchange. He turned a few minutes later, his black overcoat's flaps and folds swirling in the air. "What have you found out about this hunter in America, or those behind her?" he asked his tone both harder and colder in stone.

"Other than the fact that she's a certified, lunatic, fanatic, not much," Nagira hissed, "The one surviving witch who I sent a person to interview spoke cryptically of the angel of fire, before she died in the hospital of unknown causes."

"The angel of fire? What does that mean?" Amon said out loud, to no one in particular.

"Could mean some kind of code name, could be what the hunter looked like to the witch during the encounter," Nagira said, naming off ideas as they raced through his mind at lightning speed. "Maybe it was what the hunter called herself. I really don't know."

"There might be someone at the STN-J, who might know," Amon said.

"But if the enemy is connected to the hunter, that might put Michael in danger," Robin said, making her protector jump as she walked up behind him.

"How long have you been there?" Amon said, turning to the girl, his heart racing at how near she was. He felt himself flush, and slightly turn away as she tried to put a hand on his cheek.

"Long enough," she said, lowering her head.

"Does the name, angel of fire mean anything to you?" Nagira asked.

Robin looked at the other man and frowned, biting her lower lip. "It seems that I heard of it once or twice while I was learning Catechism. But I can't remember what it was right now."

Amon sighed and shook his head, turning slightly to the girl so his black hair was highlighted by the sun shining through Nagira's office windows. "That's fine, don't worry about it," he said softly. He reluctantly put a hand on her shoulder and allowed himself to smile. "Michael might be our only chance to learn about this, at the moment. He's done dangerous things before, and gotten out safely, and that was when he was working for Zaizen, with Director Kosaka, he might have a chance of getting the information we need, without the enemy peering over his shoulder that much."

"That might put Director Kosaka under fire though," Robin said nervously.

Amon looked at her and chuckled. "Well, he's done some things the higher ups aren't very happy about either, and somehow managed to evade the bullet. Both of them are tough men, Robin. I'm sure they'll take care not to rough up the water too much."

"It might mean revealing ourselves to the director, to ask Michael to do this," Robin continued to protest.

"Don't fool yourself, Robin. I don't doubt that Kosaka knows we're alive, but he knows the stakes, and has decided to wait until we decide to reveal the fact." He smiled at her shocked face and chuckled again. _I don't remember the last time I laughed like this._ "The threat was allowing the others to get the hopes up, and start talking when they shouldn't."

"Particularly Doujima, am I right little brother?" Nagira cackled, leaning against his desk with his elbows. His female employee hissed, which only made his grin widen.

Amon glared at the older man, but then lowered his shoulders, and nodded. "And even if it means not letting Kosaka know quite yet, Michael's been our eyes and ears before, under Zaizen."

"I, I suppose that's true," she said, stuttering on each word as she bit her finger nails.

"So it's settled. Let's see what Michael can dig up," Amon said. With one swift motion he pulled his cell phone from his coat's pocket and dialed the numbers.

Michael studied his computer, watching the colored blimps scurry around the screen. With any other teenager, he could have been playing a video game, and sometimes to keep his sanity, that's what he pretended he was doing. Instead, each of those blimps on the screen represented one of his co-workers, with the exception of a slightly larger blue blimp. That was a witch from Argentina with connections to Motokita.

"Sakaki, he's going around the corner, near the convenience store on Ranaka Road," he said into his mobile ear phone. "He should be just a few minutes from where you are."

"I'll be ready, thanks Michael," the other man said, and the teenager could hear him click his gun, ready to fire.

As he watched the screen, Michael's mind began to wander from Mauricio Rogeliez's, aka Mukhtar Ben Mohammed's, aka the Raven's, hunt. He was a petty criminal, and an even pettier witch, but he had connections to an Islamic terrorist cell in Japan, and was wanted by a few other countries. If the STN-J didn't get him, someone else would, and another chance to get to Motokita would be gone.

It was three weeks already since Amon had called in the favor. Somehow he had managed to use his cell phone, and tap directly into Michael's computer, but that was not surprising to the teen. The technology to do such a thing was available, and Amon was a resourceful person. Still it had irritated the boy that he could not, as of yet, find the reference that he had been asked to find.

It wasn't as if there hadn't been any reference to the "angel of fire" on the net. The problem was, there were billions of sites that came up due to the inquiry. A small sample included Biblical texts, non canonical texts, cult groups, and even a porn site, here or there. Michael had enjoyed those sites, and had hoped that the information would come from cult sites, or even some more religious site, but so far there was nothing definitive. It was as if someone on the inside knew of the name, and was blocking certain sites from his eyes.

One site in particular caught his attention, a conspiracy theorist group, that claimed that the reign of the papacy was coming to a close, and that one of the popes listed on their sites would be murdered by the cult of the ANGELIC FIRE, only to be replaced with a pope with ties to the east. That site closed down eight years ago, and it appears the most resent of updated writings of the cult were older than that, at least twenty years ago, during the last years of the reign of Pope Paul VI. Interesting enough, Michael only got to visit that site once, as when he tried again, for some reason it had been blocked by "anti-virus" programs that had been put into the STN-J's computer network the day _after_ he visited it.

"Michael, what the hell!" Sakaki screeched, bringing back to reality. "Where are you?"

He stumbled over his words at first, and then composed himself. "What happened?" he asked, looking at his computer screen. The larger blimp had managed to double back and eluded Sakaki just seconds before he could be encountered, as if he knew Haruto was there. "He's heading for a car dealership," he said glaring at the screen.

"I see him," Doujima squealed, "he's coming right at me." The computer screen acknowledged this fact.

Just as the blimp reached the dealership, it did a double take, and seemed to do a back flip, rushing in the other direction. _He saw her._ Michael slammed his fist into his desk and looked over to Kin, who was just coming into the room. His skin was white, and he was shaking all over, and had bits of lunch over his lower lip, but he nodded to Michael and took his place.

"Kin, don't be stupid, if you're sick, stay in bed," he said, forgetting that he had his phone still plugged into the computer.

"Will you please _focus_, Michael," Karasuma chided him. "And Kin, get back to bed, devotion to duty is one thing, but don't get obsessive on us."

"I said I'm fine," Kin snarled, "and the suspect just passed Doujima. If she turnsto a right angle and fires, she should have him."

Michael frowned and looked at his computer screen. The big blimp was still fleeing in the direction it had been going after seeing her. "You're computer in on the fritz," he said.

"The witch can screw with a person's mind, and electronic surveillance," Kin said, picking up a piece of paper. He looked ready to blow more chunks, but in order to catch the creep, he forced himself to swallow it back down. He turned back and looked at the screen, trust me Doujima, turn and fire. You'll get him." A second went by, and then they could hear bullets being shot, first from one gun, and then by two, as Karasuma reached the scene. Kin and Michael heard a man scream in pain, and then could hear him collapse to the ground.

Kin looked at Michael, a weak lopsided grin on his face. "It pays to do your bathroom reading," he said in a half chuckle. A moment later his face turned from chalky white, to sea green. A few milliseconds later, he had dropped the papers, and went zooming toward the bathrooms.

"Michael, we got him," Karasuma's voice echoed into the boy's ear. "Tell Kin thanks, and make sure he gets back to bed." _Karasuma, making jokes?_ "And let the Factory know that the suspect is ready to be picked up."

"And tell Kin that if he pukes in the hall, I'm not going to clean it up," Doujima said in a sing songy tone.

"You got it," Michael said. He alerted the Factory, one that was no longer using the essence of witches, to make Orbo, or so they said, and then began to turn off his computer. On a hunch he quickly reversed the decision and looked up his email. What he saw might his eyes grow so wide, he thought he was going to have a stroke.

It was a live news feed at the Vatican. Half an hour ago, the cardinals had chosen the next person to lead to lead their one billion followers. To the shock of many, many people it was a shock that it was not Cardinal Romano, or Cardinal Scolli. In fact, it wasn't a cardinal at all! Or even a bishop!

Michael could hardly swallow as he watched the elderly man with scruffy side burns, thick hair as white as the puffs of smoke still trailing from the chimney. His clothes were white and red, and he waved briefly at the people with a sad, thin, smile gracing his lips.

"Pope Lando II? I didn't even know there was Pope Lando I," Kin nearly made Michael leap out of his skin. The teenager turned to the older man, his face greener than what Kin's had been just moments ago. "Damn, who's the sick one?" he said with a chortle.

"Don't do that," he snapped.

"So, what's so distressing about this guy being pope?" Kin leaned over and narrowed his eyes. "He seems like an Italian, most of the popes have been anyway, haven't they?"

"Except I never knew any of the other's before," Michael quipped.

Kin frowned further and looked at the boy, starting to catch on. "You, know him then?"

"Yes, I do, not very personally, but I've spoken to him once or twice. Robin knows him extremely well, almost like a grandfather, in fact, that's not all that far off."

"So then, who the hell is he?" Kin roared.

"Father Juliano?" Robin took a step from the television, the blood fleeing her body, as if she had somehow became unholy. Sweat poured down her forehead and wetted her plain black Victorian dress. Her green eyes glazing over as each second her confessor and "grandfather" stood on the balcony waving to the thousands of adoring followers.

"Father Juliano was elected pope?" Amon gently attempted to push her aside, and failing to do so, simply watched besides her. He began tapping his finger on his chest and slowly became lost in thought. Ever since the previous pope had been pronounced dead, Robin had seemed to insist that there was more at work here than a simple death. Even Harry could not console her grief and suspicion. Now, with her "grandfather" the father of her mother, standing there as the new pope, never having been made a cardinal, or a bishop for that matter, Amon began to feel as if she might have been right all the time.

"They want to draw us out," she said in a whisper. "I don't know how they plan on using him to do it, but the enemy wants to draw us out in a battle."

"You are probably right," Amon said slowly. In fact he knew that she was right. There had been non cardinals made pope before, as well as a non bishop or two, and John XII was barely eighteen years when he was made a pope, the cardinals keeping a promise to his father to do so. He hadn't been a very good pope, and Amon was sure Fr. Juliano would be far better to fill those shoes than him, but there was still an air of sinister intensions all around this.

"I do not think we should take the bait, no matter what they put on the hook, until we know who they are." He looked at the girl and felt his shoulders drop. He knew that was exactly what she was thinking of doing. "Robin, too many lives are depending on us to stay in the shadows for a little while longer. She looked up at him and nodded.

Robin sat in her room, late at night, pulling her legs into her chest. In front of her she was watching the rebroadcast of Fr. Juliano's election. There were numerous stations trying to dig far into his background, and into his past, some getting a few things right, most of them only announcing speculations.

The light from the television danced along the dark corners of her room, like a ballet of colors and shades. Behind the girl the white wall shimmered with whites and grays, and fine cadet blues.

"Fr. Juliano, why?" she asked with teary emerald eyes. "Oh Lord, how could this happen?"


	4. Flames of Darkness

FIVE REVIEWS! AWESOME! Well they say that if you hit at least five, then you know you have a decent series. Thanks to these reviews, this series will continue. I'll post some thanks and answers at the end of this chapter. Anyway you'll not find any heroes in this chap, as the title points out, we're looking at the darker side of human nature here. Enjoy.

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Flames of Darkness

The shadow moved across the empty pew, spying the two individuals, its eyes was hoping to find. The twin crimson orbs narrowed and a smile spread across the shadow's lips. The individual moved quickly, like a cat prowling through the dark corners of an alley, hunting a mouse. Within seconds the shadow was sitting next to the other two, and leaned back against the chair, flexing its tight muscles. Its crimson eyes turned down toward the pit and watched as many men and women vied for the admiration of the crowd high above them.

The pit was twice as long as an American football field, and six times as deep. Surrounding the pit were long walls, and above those were the stands for the normal people, and above those, were the V.I.P. stands, where most of the most wealth and deviant could watch and bet on who would win.

The combatants fought in thirty-two different arenas, all of them surrounded by steel cages, either covered with electric wires, or barbed wire. Sweat, blood and mud caked their bodies, and over the disembodied body parts lying on the ground.

"How very barbaric," the shadow hissed with black ice. It waved its hand back and forth in front of its nose, to block out the smell of the arena, and for a brief second closed its eyes.

"You never did have a taste for this, if I remember," one of the other individuals, a tall thin man in his late forties said, momentarily eyeing the new comer. "And you're late, that's never changed either."

"Unlike you, I have important things to do, other than spend my time, gawking at scantily clad women wrestle in a mud pit," the shadow said, its eyes narrowing to fine sliced slits.

The man fidgeted in his chair and looked away from the shadow, his breathing becoming labored and his body temperature rising. "Whatever, I'm doing this for the cause."

"Whatever helps you sleep," the shadow said drolly. It turned to the other individual, a pretty slender woman in her early thirties. "And what about you?"

"It wasn't that long ago that they found me and my talents down there," she said with a playful smile. "True I wasn't rolling in mud, but don't under estimate these people with how they fight, they might prove useful in the future."

As if to prove her point, a bikini clad vixen that had been pushed against a steel cage to electrocute her on the open wires surrounding the cage, sent a huge wave of wind against the other girl, flinging her into the air like a rag doll. The brunette screamed for help, desperately clawing at the tornado around her, to get down to the floor. Her opponent scowled, and made a fist with her left hand, slamming her right fist into it. The wind began slamming the brunette back and forth, bashing her skull in with the force of a jackhammer. Blood began to ooze from the brunettes nose, and finally, when she could scream no more, her opponent, raised her arms like a sadistic maestro leading a monstrous orchestra of pain, and whipped her arms into opposite directions. The strong winds gripped the brunette by her limbs and tore her apart into four directions, blood and gore raining down on the short red headed woman. She smiled under the ooze and bowed to the inhuman pleasure of the roaring crowd.

"Damn," the forty-something year old man said, and lowered his head, his eyes growing wet. He licked his lips again and looked at the odd bits and pieces lying in the mud and blood covered pit that had once been the determined young brunette. "Damn it again," he sobbed.

"How much did you lose, on your wager this time, Councilman?" the shadow said with a smile.

"I could have sworn that the brunette would have won, I lost over twenty thousand yen on her," he said, through salty tears which ran down his streak.

"A normal human, against a witch?" the woman asked. "Maybe if the girl hadn't forgone her sword and her skills as a swordswoman, she might have had a chance." She looked at the shadow and her smile grew wider. "And she's just one of many people who have such talents in these arenas."

"Motokita's little house of sin _does_ provide with excellent operatives, and the money he raises for these events only helps to make Project Phoenix that much closer to a reality," it said with a very inaudible chuckle.

"Then the Council of Ganesha is pleased with our efforts?" the man said. The shadow nodded and the elderly man forgot his woes and smiled, if only for a second.

"But what of the girl, the 'Devil's Child'? Won't she pose a problem?" He looked at the individual and seemed to shrink from his glare.

"Is she even still alive?" the woman asked.

"Oh, I know for a fact that she lives, though unfortunately I don't know where she is at the moment." The shadow chuckled again and crossed its arms. "Even if the election of her dear grandfather as pope doesn't drag her out into the open, which eventually I'm sure it will, we have other methods of making her show herself."

"The hunter in America," the man said, staring straight at the shadow. The other individual nodded. "But can we really trust her? I mean without the source?"

"That is true," said the woman, "it was the source who found her, and now that we no longer have him in our circle, she might be liability."

"We will deal with that bridge, if we come to it," the shadow snapped. The individual stood up and shook its head again as its eyes focused back down at the arena. Two more scantily women were now in the arena, which had seen so much bloodshed at the powers of the wind witch. They rolled and tumbled in blood and mud, yanking each other's hair, clawing at exposed flesh, and bite one another.

"Barbaric," the shadow again. The individual turned and began to walk away. "Don't bet too much money, Councilman -- not all of it is yours to bet," the shadow began, "and report any progress right away to the Council." The individual turned and walked out of the building.

Now all that was left was to see if its bait had finally been taken. The shadow entered its black corvette, and drove from the parking lot. Robin Sena would be dead within the month, if the Fates smiled at the cause. And the Fates always smiled at the shadow's cause.

The hunter watched the little blonde hair girl walk into the classroom and frowned. How typical for a witch to live in such an arid, dry town as Barstow, California. Her angel had told her that a new, more powerful demon had arrived in Japan, and would soon be threatening the poor, defenseless people, and needed her help. But as she drove to Las Vegas, she had spotted the little monster in this god forsaken town, commanding legions of insects into a jar that she probably was going to use for show and tell.

Barstow was a town that burned to the ground two or three times already, its major source of income at one point being the Harvey House and the railroad. It was because of the trains that the fire started, and the idiots kept building their buildings and shops near the tracks. Now its main source of in come was also its enslaver, a Wal-Mart which had put many of the smaller shops out of business.

The sun was hot and brutal, and the woman frowned and covered her face with a hood. The flames and heat reminded her of Hell, where her own flames she considered cool, and comforting to those who remained in a state of grace, and hotter still to those who loved sin.

A snake had crawled on its belly towards her, and stuck her tongue out, investigating this new intruder that had taken over her home. The hunter ignored the animal for a moment, standing near a bush and focused her attention at the school with her high powered binoculars. Feeling brave the snake tried crawling up the woman's leg, and hissed as the hunter flashed a tongue of fire at it. The reptile turned tail and rushed back into the safety of her hole, and huddled there as she could feel the vibration of the woman's growl.

"Mount St. Joseph," she read at the name of the school. It was a Catholic school, which made a little sense, as the witch was half-Hispanic. She removed the binoculars and scowled her raven eyes grew darker in the heat of the day. There didn't seem to be very many nuns in the classrooms that she could see, and as she brought back the binoculars to her eyes and switched them to a stronger setting, she could see that to be honest, there were absolutely no nuns there at all.

That didn't matter; the fact was that there was a witch within the halls. Not every child in a Catholic school were little 'idol' worshipers, and it was possible that not all the teachers were either. But again, the little witch was in there, and there was a possibility that there was more than one witch. That could not be allowed. Her hand flickered over her Bible, and she said a quick prayer for the souls of the innocents. Then she stood up and began to slowly approach the school.

"Excuse me," a gentle and high voice said as she walked up to the gates at the back of the school. "Can I help you?"

The hunter turned to the other woman and tried her best to smile. "Yes, I was looking for a certain student, that attends this school," she said soothingly. This was perfect, if she could just get the witch, and leave, she wouldn't have to shed innocent blood. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the picture of the witch. "Her mother told me that she wanted me to pick her up."

The young woman took the picture, smilingly and looked at it. She seemed nice enough, her hair was long and blonde, her eyes were crystal blue, and she wore a decent gray dress that flowed down to her knees. She was small, barely five feet, and she smelled of flowers. She looked at the picture, and her smile slowly dropped, as did the hunter's heart. Slowly she began to scowl and looked up at the hunter in disgust and anger. "What are you trying to pull," she hissed crossly. "This is **_my_** daughter." She crossed her arms and tried to stare the hunter down. "I think you should go before I call the police."

Anger burned in the heart of the hunter, how she had prayed for something opposite of this. There _was _more than one witch at this school, and if a teacher was a witch, then she was obviously teaching the children witchcraft. There was no peaceful solution to this.

"Did you hear what I said," the woman snapped, pulling out her cell phone, "I'm calling the cops." She began to dial the phone, and then screeched in pain as the hunter grasped her wrist with tremendous force, a great white shark couldn't produce the same kind of force when it bit into its prey. "What the hell are you doing!" the woman cried, hot tears running down her cheeks. She turned and screeched for help.

"There are forces out there that are superior in authority to any police force," she began, her voice calm and icy cold, "witch." Already there was a scene, and the hunter cursed herself for taking this long to do what she knew she had to. A priest with gray white hair and a short beard and mustache, came rushing out of his office, looking over at the hunter and the witch.

"You there, what are you doing?" he yelled.

"Burn," she said to the woman, and using her God given powers, set the witch on fire. She screamed and began twitching and swirling as the flames licked her cloths and flesh. The hunter turned attention to the screaming children and sighed, God would forgive her for the deaths of the innocents, if there were indeed any here. With a thought the children were engulfed in a circle of flames and then so was the school.

"Mother of God," the priest hollered, and rushed forward, with other workers, to put out the flames that were burning the children.

"God has no mother, heathen, and this will teach you to allow such demons to instruct the most innocent with the devil's brood." The hunter turned her attention to the priest, and narrowed her eyes. He might have be engulfed in flames too, had it not been for one of the teachers, who created water from the air, and put out the flames, and then sprayed the children too.

He was balding on top, but what hair he had was red. His face was the shape of an oval, and he wore tiny glasses, that made him look like a Nazi commander in an Indiana Jones flick. And it looked like his right ear was formed in a point, almost elf like. He tried to help the woman too, but it looked as though there was not much he could do for her.

"What are you people?" the priest wailed.

"People who were blessed with gifts from God," the man said, "but unfortunately some of us would rather use them for destruction."

"Shut up, Heathen witch!" the hunter screeched. She sent two more balls of fire at them, one of which the witch snuffed out with a blast of water, the other, landing on and burning a large hall, next to the school. NOONAN'S HALL, it read.

They battled for a few more minutes, until the little witch that she had tried to kill in the first place gathered enough anger and courage to avenge her mother, and mentally ordered the insects to attack. They weren't much of a menace, but they were annoying, and distracted her from her battle with the adult, water witch.

The hunter had never battled two witches before, though she had no doubt that in the end, she would win. However, she could hear the wails of police cars, and fire trucks. She could fight one witch, even two witches, but there was no way she could fight two witches, and a town's whole law enforcement.

Angered beyond reason; the hunter flung the palms of her hands to the ground and sent a blast of fire racing toward the witch, which knocked him off of his feet. His head bounced off the ground with a sickening thud, and he lay lifeless. Good, she had killed him, and on the off chance that she hadn't – well, that couldn't be helped right now.

On second glance she frowned and looked as his chest rose and fell. No, she hadn't killed him, but at least she managed to send one demon back into the flames of hell. Once she was done with the witch in Japan, she was determined to come back to this foul city, and finish the job. The hunter raced back to her motorcycle and speed of for Vegas which would take her to Japan. She had been told that the demon there was stronger than strong, and from what she could figure, if this water witch had tested her to the limits, the Japanese witch would be much more of a challenge. She grinned; good perhaps it was time for her ego to drop for a while. An inflated ego could make her blind, as the previous battle had just shown her. She narrowed her eyes, and hunched forward, for this chance at showing God how sorry she was for this arrogant tie, she hungered.

"Robin," she said with a dark coo, "I'm coming."

**AN:** Okay, I know I said there would be no heroes in this story, but I couldn't help but bring the hunter down a peg, I figured it would make her that much more fanatical to "prove" herself when she began to hunt Robin. And the hero briefly seen here, the water witch, is based on myself. Yep, that was me. I don't plan on adding Kris Anderson to the story, unless of course my reviewers want to see more of him. Let me know what you think.

I also want to add that even though you read about the Project Phoenix, and the Council of Ganesha, don't get to excited to see too much about either of them. This is just a little glimpse into a bigger frame of my Witch Hunter Robin Universe. If I get enough requests for a sequel after this, then maybe you'll find out more. Once you guys see the end of this story in its entirety I'm sure I'll be getting demands for a sequel.

Okay, now to answer some questions, and give out some thanks to you kind, kind people .

Somerandomdude: Thanks for the compliment, and hopefully you like the rest of the story as much as the first chap. I agree that I didn't need to describe Robin and Amon so early but it was my first fic (for and didn't know how many pages I needed. And by the way, I didn't mean that Robin was going around lifting up her shirt and showing people her navel, but that she was in a small shirt, which did not cover up her midriff. She wore a similar outfit in Episode 10, Separate Lives, when she works undercover at Harry's.

Sakaki's Girl: Again thank you for reading and enjoying the story thus far, and a major big thank you with a cyber cookie of your choice for giving me, Mika Hanamura's name. Now all I need is for the male assistants name, or is there two? If someone has that answer too, feel free to post it. Thanks again Sakaki's Girl.

Sparky 16: Well, it looks right now that you are the biggest fan of this story! Thank you so, very, very much! I don't think that you missed the update for Chapter 2 so much as you missed Chapter 3, 'cause I posted both of them together. As to what my evil little mind is plotting, you ain't seen nuthin' yet (once again wait to you get to the end). What I have in store is going to blow away a lot of minds (not literary of course, ). I hope to update Chapters 4, and 5 and maybe even Chapter 6 by as early as possibly September (if I'm lucky I might get a chance to update even sooner than that, but we will see). I have to use my sister's computer as I don't have Internet options at my own home. I'll even consider turning on my anonymous option.

Thanks again for everyone who has read, both reviewers and non-reviewers (although I could use more reviews ). I hope you enjoy the next couple of chapters coming your way.


	5. Flames of Light

Just as you didn't see too many heroes in the last chapter, you aren't going to see too many villains in this one. This is more about the good guys in this one. Enjoy it!

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Flames of Light

A single bishop walked into the papal apartment and nodded slightly as Fr. Juliano, now Pope Lando II turned and greeted him with a slight smile. "_Bene Meridiem_," he said, motioning the other man to take a seat.

"_Boa Tarde,_ Your Holiness," the other man said with his own smile, his voice thick with a Brazilian accent. Bishop Lorenz Aquiline sat down and folded his hands as he looked at the other man.

"Is there something I can do for you?" Pope Lando asked, raising an eyebrow. The warm Italian Summer air filled the room with a calm and soothing atmosphere.

"Your Holiness," Bishop Aquiline said, stroking his hands. "It has come to our attention that the people of the Church around the world, are beginning to worry about certain individuals who have _unique_ gifts." He pulled a paper out from his pocket and dropped it on the pope's desk. "We have numerous petitions from the people asking us to do something about this."

Lando sighed for a moment, and rose to his feet. He could try to deny knowing what the bishop was talking about, but as Fr. Juliano, whose daughter was impregnated with an enhanced child, he knew all too well. He also knew that the bishop had worked on the project as well. "Now is not the time for us to pick a fight, or choose sides, Lorenz," he said with a groan.

"But now is actually the time," the other man said, slightly raising his voice. "Every day there are more and more witches who are beginning to expose themselves. Solomon can't curtail each and every one of them." He pulled another piece of paper and tossed it at the pope. "Just three days ago, there was an incident by a Catholic school in a small town in California. A hunter appeared from no where and attacked a child with powers. She was repulsed by a witch with water abilities." His eyes grew narrower and darker than mud as he continued to speak. "Both the school and a large hall that they used as a cafeteria were burnt down to the ground, the witch was apprehended by the local authorities, and is being interviewed as we speak. His mother has spent a letter to the local bishop to ask for help."

Fr. Juliano looked at the paper and felt his chest fall. The water witch had attempted to help, but was knocked out during the fight. One of the school employees, the mother of the witch the hunter had tried to take out, was killed by the hunter, who was now no where to be found. "I can't get involved," he said with a sad moan. "If we acknowledge the existence of these people there could be a riot, and witch hunts all over the world, _I _would be responsible for the deaths of millions; that will not happen!" He shook his head "If I help out, it look's like the Catholic Church is siding with these people, even when they misuse their powers." He sighed and rose to his feet. "No, we can do nothing on this situation."

"Is that the pope talking, or Robin Sena's grandfather?" the other man snapped.

"That is out of line," Juliano roared, swirling on his heels. Somehow the room with its bright whites and cool summer reds seemed very uncomfortable now. The pope's eyes widened and became blood shot as he glared at the other man. "You have no right to talk about that," he said, his tone lower, but filled with ice. He sat down at the thick oak desk and groaned. "_If_ it was about Robin, I would _sing _it to the Heavens, about their existence."

"No you _would not_," the bishop said, his tone cold and flat like a science teacher. "You are afraid that if you make witch's existence open to the public, Robin will face persecution herself." He smiled smugly and rested his hands on the back of his hands. "You know I am right."

The pope stared at the bishop for an alarming amount of time – seconds passed into minutes. The two of them stared at each other in silence the only sound in the room – a ticking clock on the far side of Juliano's wall. For a moment it even seemed that even the laughter of the tourists and Italian children seemed to fall mute as they glowered at each other.

"I think you should go now," Juliano finally managed to say.

"We're going to have to do something about this sooner or later, Juliano," Bishop Aquiline said under his breath. "It's just going to blow up in our face if we don't." He stood up and took his coat in his hand.

"Damn it, Lorenz, just drop it," Juliano growled.

"Say what you will, Your Holiness," the bishop said, his tone very sad. "But I'll not leave that poor boy stranded in the American jail." Pope Lando II rose to say something else, but the bishop held out his hand. "The statement will come from me _alone_. The Vatican will have nothing to do with it."

"Except you _aren't_ that diocese's bishop, your not even a North American bishop. So if you say anything, it _will_ look like it is a foreign affair." He sighed and shook his head. "Write a letter to the bishop in the boy's diocese, and see if there is anything he can do." Juliano stood up and jutted out a bony finger. "_You _stay out of it, Lorenz."

Bishop Aquiline sighed, his dark brown eyes filled with sadness. "There is a storm approaching, Juliano, one we both had a hand in creating. I just hope when the time comes, we're both ready to deal with its casualties."

The pope watched him turned and walk out of the apartment, before sliding back into his chair and grimacing. His white robes wrinkled and swayed as he rocked back and forth, but he ignored them. "How I long for simpler times," he said, slightly under his breath.

Kin sat at his desk, his face etched with agitation. "Mom, I'm fine," he snapped. There was a pause and he shook his head. "No mom, there is no reason why my old phone number is disconnected." There was another sigh and the former police officer, now STN-J member, cursed silently. "Mom, I'm telling you there is no reason to worry."

"But your father --," she began.

"I don't want anything from him," Kin snarled so ferociously he heard his mother gasp.

"Kin, honey are you on drugs?" his mother asked, her voice quivering. He could almost hear the tear drops hit her polished marble floor. "I've just been worried about you darling. The whole family has."

"Mom, I go through this every time, you or anyone else in the family," _except for dad, _"talks to me. I'm not on drugs, I'm not drunk, and _I'm _perfectly fine. So please, do not ask me about it any _more_!

"Look, just so you know, I am working in a very profitable group, doing Japan a great service; we're helping a lot of people." He smiled and leaned back in the chair.

"Then why don't you ever visit us anymore?" his mother snapped, her tears drying up faster than a swimming pool artificially placed in the Sahara Desert. "I mean, I never even get a birthday card from you. When was the last time you even shopped for food, or went to your apartment?"

Kin frowned and sat forward, the dark corners of the office seemed to come collapsing around him. "Have you been spying on me, mother?"

"Kin honey, that's not appropriate," she said, her tone harder than granite. "Why would you say something like that to your poor, weak mother, who can barely get out of bed some mornings, because she is so wracked with grief and worry about her only baby boy?"

"Mother, skip the phony ass act, we both know you go to those fancy get together events every weekend. And we both know that you also have Toshi," he snapped back.

He heard his mother click her tongue and hiss. "Toshi, what a lazy child, he has no potential, not like you Kin."

"That's not what you told your ladies club the day after my graduation from the police academy," Kin jeered. His eyes twinkled with dark light, and he smiled with a fierce grin, the shadows seemingly fleeing from him, replaced by medium shades of blue and green.

"Which graduation day would that be Kin, honey?" his mother said stonily. Just as quickly as the shadows vanished, they surged back around him. Still she wasn't finished. "It's not my fault that you are so insecure with your talents that you had to re-enlist after graduating the first time with top honors."

"We both know why I did that, mother," he growled. His ire was growing at an extended rate. The Japanese officer rose to his feet and began pacing the officer back and forth, his chest rising and falling. His fingers clenched the phone and tightened their grasp even more – if only the phone was his mother's neck.

"You really disappointed your father that day, Kin," she said, her pseudo tears beginning to drop yet again. "You know just as well as I do that it was hard for him to go and explain to --,"

"Mother," Kin roared, arteries in his face beginning to pop, "we have nothing more to talk about." He pulled the phone from his ear, covering the mouth piece and swore out loud, though he had no doubt that she could hear him. He took a gulp of air, breathed it out, and sighed. Putting the phone back to his ear he finished, "Mother I'm fine, I have a good life, and I'm doing a good thing working here. That should be good enough for you," _if you were any kind of mother, that is, _"so if you please do not mind, _do not _call this phone again. I'll talk to you again in a couple of weeks, so we can both calm down."

He knew the next comments from her mouth, he didn't even need to hear them to know what she would say, and before she could speak them, he swiftly pushed the off button on the phone and smashed it under foot. He looked down at it and gave a sad, lopsided grin.

"I keep this up, and the cell phone company is going to blow a gasket." Kin stretched, and yawned. It was early in the morning, and no one was in the office yet. Michael was still upstairs in his apartment, fast asleep. _I could really use another two hours of sleep too. _He smirked and nodded to himself, heading for his own room.

Robin slipped her overcoat over her arms, and slid the hood over her head, and silently slipped through the door. It wasn't that good of an escape, she knew, Amon was just next door, and he had ears like a wild animal. Still, he knew she was capable of defending her self if something happened, and she didn't plan to go _too_ far away from Nagira's building. She just needed some fresh air, and it was five in the morning, nothing fresher than that type of air.

Slipping through the door of the office, and quickly down the stairs until she was to the door of the building, Robin slid on her thick shades and walked out into the "real world". She sighed, her head turning from the right to the left, and back again until with a nod she was off, toward a small park near the complex, and began jogging.

She had taken it up just shortly after Zaizen had died, and she had disappeared from public eye, silently moaning the loss of her scooter. After a while she found a liking to it, and over the next couple of months, had found it had tightened her body even more than Amon's Nazi boot camp, training sessions she agreed to endure to hone her powers. She was sixteen now, and had become quite a woman. If someone were to look at her, they would assume she was a high school student, or perhaps a college student, who was part of the track team. Her legs were slender, than what they were when she first arrived to Japan the first time, and her upper body had the shape that made most men ogle her from a distance, but keep them there out of fear. She even tried her hand at lifting weights, much to Amon's disapproval, and found that as the months went, she could bench lift nearly one hundred and fifty pounds for five minutes. She even took up kick boxing while she hid in South America.

All in all, she was not nearly the Robin Sena, agent of Solomon, that she had been a few months ago. She was a warrior, or the student of becoming a warrior now. She was dangerous in both physical arts, and the use of the craft, and that disturbed the part of Robin that was still that little girl who lived so long in the convent in Italy. What if she began to take a liking to using this strength too much? What if Zaizen had been right, and coupled with physical strength and mental strength, her craft use drove her over the edge of ambition and madness?

Robin stopped jogging and batted her head back and forth, her eyes clasped tight. No, no she could not think about that right now. She wouldn't think about it. There were too many people who were counting on her; there was the threat of the hunter, the possibility that Fr. Juliano had been elected to be used as a pawn, her friends' lives. The weight of the world hung on her shoulders, and she did not like it. _I'm strong, but I'm no Atlas._

Finally she continued to jog, until she stopped near a small wooden building. It wasn't fancy, nor was it new. In fact it was a shack if you wanted to call it that, but she smiled as she looked at it. Except for a homeless woman, her husband, and three small children, no one knew it was hidden in this park. Tall dark green trees surrounded it, like guardians protecting a precious secret from marauding barbarians. Moss covered its dark brown walls, and small bushes hide the stepping stones that lead to the entrance. The only thing that showed its former, modest splendor, were four stain glass windows, which until very recently, had been covered with cobwebs and dust but never broken. It was a beacon of light, of hope surrounded by the shadows of a modern, uncaring atheistic, hedonistic world.

Robin walked into the small church, and was greeted by three very sleepy, yet undeniably excited squeals, followed by a deep low chuckle. The teenager smiled and looked down at the children as they rushed over to grab her ankles and grinned up at her.

"Daddy," the youngest, a tiny little girl with short black hair tied into a pony tail, and wearing Vandread pajamas said, looking back at her father, "daddy, Sister Robin is here!"

"So I see," said a giant of a man, his beard long and gangly. He rose to his feet and greeted her with a pleasant smile. "Can I offer you breakfast before your prayers Robin?"

"If you have coffee that would be nice, if it's not too much trouble" Robin said with a smile. She slowly sat in one of the pews, holding the squealing girl giving her ribs a little tickle, before setting her down.

He shook his head and smiled. "You came here two weeks ago and gave us hope, Robin. I haven't seen Shina so happy since before then, or the other two for that matter. If you want coffee, then you shall have coffee."

Robin looked at the man and grinned widely. "_Arigatoo_, Kano."

"You are very welcome, Sister Robin," he said with a large grin.

Robin finished her coffee, and then knelt down, making the sign of the cross. The children blinked at her, and then copied her movements. Their father, Kano Irosaka had no qualms about that, his wife had been raised Catholic, even though he was a Buddhist. It would be good for the children to learn something about that faith.

Robin continued to pray, to pray for peace, for hope, that the flame of light would not disappear from the Earth. When she was finished, she thanked them for their kindness, rose to her feet, and slipped out of the church as quickly as she had entered. Within ten minutes she was back at the complex, and sat waiting for Amon to leave his room. Then they would wait more still, while dark forces conspired to crush them. Robin just hoped that the flicker of light she felt within that church would be enough to enduring the coming deluge of evil.


	6. Fires of Chaos

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Fires of Chaos

One month in a half after speaking with Amon and Robin, Michael sat at his desk, thumbing the computer board. There was nothing much to do today, Motokita and his mafia had seemingly disappeared out of thin air, and any chances of catching him went up in the same amount of smoke. True there was the Raven, but the foreign witch seemed more afraid of Motokita's reach, than he was of what Solomon could do to him. So it the case was now a complete standstill.

And it would have stayed that way, if a few minutes later, a massive blast rocked the halls of the STN-J, leaving a gapping hole where a wall had at one time been. Michael was thrown half way across the room, and slammed into the conference room window, slowly slumping down to the floor. There was silence after that first explosion, and many of his coworkers were burst in to see what was happening, when waves of gunfire began to pour out of that hole.

"Shit, an attack!" Kin roared, reaching the room last. The former police officer acted on gut instinct, and surveyed the scene, looking for the best place to kneel and return fire. Glancing at a desk that had been knocked over to the far rear of the room, the agile man rushed over, zigzagging through bullets, and leapt over the table. Already the others had found their own safe spots, and knelt, barring down on the hole with their guns ready.

None of them returned fire, but stayed crotched as the bullets flied by. It seemed like forever when the first wave of attacks stopped, and Kin peered over the desk, like a gopher peaking out of his hole, to see where Michael was. He finally found the boy lying on his side, breathing heavily – but still breathing. Blood flowed from his head, and was staining his black shirt, but Michael looked up at him and smiled, giving thumbs up.

"What was that all about?" Karasuma asked, her hands twitching near the trigger of her gun. Like the other STN-J members, she had forgone the use of her Orbo pistol, and was using the old tried and true pistols.

"Karasuma, be quiet," Karasuma snarled, her brown hair clinging to her forehead as sweat raced down her face. "It's not over yet." She turned her head, still she needed to take into accounted who was here, "If you're still alive, shout out once, and then sit still." One by one they acknowledged that they were fine, even Michael, though Kin warned him to just lie where he was.

"Its times like this that make me wish I still had my Remington Magnum with me," Director Kosaka said under his breath, running a hand over his bald head. He looked over to Kin and frowned for a moment, and then smiled as he realized that the man had heard him.

"What kind?" he asked looking at his director's eyes.

"Take your pick," the other man chuckled. "I collected many different kinds." He turned along with his employee, as dozens of armed, masked men began pouring out from the hole.

"You boys can discuss your toys later, right now, fight with what we have," Karasuma snapped. At her orders, the group rose slightly and let loose a new wave of bullets. The guns didn't have the kick of a magnum shotgun, or of anything close to a Remington style feel, but it was enough to splatter a few of the invaders into the walls.

It didn't take the invaders long to take up their own defensive positions, and the scene quickly turned into a shoot out at the O.K. Coral, minus the Coral and Wyatt Earp. Occasionally one of the STN-J members would make a clean shot, and down would go another thug, but more and more armed goons were pouring into the office, and worse, Kin could hear the distinctive sounds of footsteps behind them and the ding of an elevator. Whoever was attacking, they were now going to start coming from both sides.

Sakaki kept up his vigilance, but the invasion all too painfully reminded him of the Factory's invasion, when they tried to get Robin. And that hadn't ended to well for the good guys. Two more pulls of the trigger, and then there was a hard click. He frowned and looked down, cursing under his breath, he was out of ammo. He'd have to crawl through the overturned table he was hiding by, across no man's land, to get some more. Unless the table had any in its drawers, that was. Pushing it to the side, and hissing as a bullet barely missed his right leg, Sasaki opened some of the drawers, and then cursed every Kami he could ever think of. All of them were empty.

The eighteen year old man dropped to his belly and began slowly slinking across the cold marble flood, occasionally slipping on blood as he went, to try and reach the side of the office, where he knew that they kept their concealed weapons, in just this emergency. Unfortunately for him, the thugs seemed to some how know that, and were barricading themselves in that area. "Damn it to hell," he roared. That proved to be a mistake, the thugs looked down at him, startled for a second, and then seemed to look at each other. They raised their guns, aiming it at the boy, and began pulling their triggers.

"Incoming," Doujima shouted. Sasaki frowned, as apparently his would be murderers did too, and looked at the girl's direction, as a pale white, manicured hand tossed a small, dark green orb in the direction of the assailants.

"Ah, shit," the boy roared again, and scrambled toward the safety of his barrier, crouching himself into a little ball. A few of the thugs launched themselves away from the ball of death, but one poor soul was not so fortunate. The grenade landed neatly in his lap, and went off before he could do anything about it, tossing his legs and waist back against the weapons drawer, what his torso and half his shoulder went slamming against the left side of the wall where he was. The other half of the shoulder and his head went up in orange and red dust as the explosion set off the ammo inside the drawer. Now half the office was being licked up with the flames of battle, and the other half divided between the STN-J members, and the attackers.

"Good going girl," Karasuma snarled bitterly. The young woman released the trigger to her gun, fired off the last couple of bullets, and then quickly reloaded the last few bits of ammo she had. "We've got to escape from here," she screeched over the dim of battle.

"They've got the elevator," Kin roared back. "Probably headed up here as we speak."

"And they've got that hole well guarded," Michael groaned, "There isn't going to be an easy time taking that from them." The dark blonde boy forced himself against the conference window; he could now see the enemy gaining the advantage. The loll of enemy forces exiting the hole was now over, and a new wave of assailants began to pour into the office. Michael could also see his friends inching toward where he was, their defensive points slowly evaporating thanks to the enemy, or to the fire.

"Can't go to the side, and can't go forward," Sasaki said thoughtfully. "We're going to have to go back, the conference room."

"And from there?" Director Kosaka asked. He frowned and thought, Zaizen had an escape plan set out somewhere near the conference room, should something like this take place, but where was it? Damn it, where the holy fucking hell was it?

The room was now aglow with flames and shadows. There were at least sixty if not seventy well armed assailants in the room now, and they no longer showed any sign of hesitation, or any indication that they planned to take up new defensive positions. Half of them guarded their path of entrance into the building; the others slowly were making their way toward the group of resistance fighters. Finally Kosaka sighed and nodded his head.

"Michael if you can get to the door of the conference room open it; and the rest of us will meet up with you."

"That's insane," Kin snapped. "The kid is hurt, trying something like that, might worsen his injuries, and kill him." The former police officer rose to his knees and shot a number of bullets into the gang of attackers, dropping seven of them, before slipping back to his stomach.

"And if he doesn't, we will all be killed," his director snarled back at him. "Everyone, get ready to run, those of us with any remaining ammo will hold them back." He looked over at the conference room, and then at the goons approaching, their faceless masks unable to hide the understanding of his words. "On the count of three Michael; one, two --,"

The attackers had no intention of letting them get away. At the sound of the director's instructions, they began to rush, in mass, at the conference room, blazing their weapons. Michael rose to open the door with his key card, and screamed as three dozen bullets ripped away at his arm. Blood oozed everywhere, and the boy dropped the card, before dropping to the floor, and blacking out.

"Three!" roared a new voice, from off to the side, near the elevator. The attackers and the defenders turned to look, with different expressions. A tall individual in very white clothes, along with three of his employees stood, holding semi automatic rifles. They weren't the individuals the attackers had hoped for.

"Miss me, little lady?" Nagira smiled wistfully at Doujima and then looked at the assailants. "Excuse us for barging in on you, but I don't really think that this is the way to go about getting an appointment with the director." There was a twinkle in his eye, and his smile stretched from ear to ear. "All though this is much more entertaining." Without warning, he and his employees raised their guns, and hail of deadly shrapnel engulfed the attackers. A few of them turned to their new opponents, making the mistake of turning their backs on Doujima, who produced a second grenade and heaved it into their ranks.

That was enough to decimate the seventy strong thugs to nothing more than a handful of injured and groaning living corpses. A small minority – a very small minority – slipped back through the hole, and clutched a few ropes, that took them to the safety of their helicopters. In the blink of an eye, they were gone, but not before Kin managed to glimpse a wide eyes, and furious glance at one of the helicopter's insignias.

"What was that about?" Karasuma asked, rising to her feet.

Nagira stormed over to Michael, and sighed at the boy's body, motioning his men, a few who more who seemed to appear out of no where, to carefully take the boy. Amon's older brother scanned the scene carefully and sighed. "We'll discuss it later," he said. "Right now it's not safe for us to stay here."

"But how did you know to come here?" Doujima asked, trouncing behind the man, half way like a puppy dog – though should someone tell her that, she'd tear his throat out.

"I have my sources," he curtly replied. "There was no time to warn you of an attack before it happened, so we made the decision, to come here as quickly as possible, to help out. "

There was something about the way he had said that word. "_We?" _She crossed her arms and looked at him, her eyes squinting.

Nagira sighed. _Not now Doujima._ "I'll tell you when I think I should," he said quizzically.

There was another click of a gun, and Karasuma held a pistol to the back of his head. "You will tell us now."

Director Kosaka shook his head, and grasped the young woman's wrist, "Not now, let's just rest, and try and figure this all out." He looked at the body of the boy on the stretcher and groaned.

"What will happen to him?" he asked, pointing to a broken and bloody Michael.

"I have a few doctors who are good friends of mine," Nagira said quickly. They'll take good care of him. But for now, let's just get out of the view of the public, hmmm?"

There was no doubting the wisdom in the man's suggestion. Raven's Flat was ablaze. There were other fires other than on the floor where the combat had taken. Kin didn't doubt that he had been right on his first assumption that the enemy had taken the first floors during the initial attack, but had fallen, or supposedly fallen to Nagira's guys. A small crowd of on lookers had gathered to see what had happened, and the last thing anyone wanted was public attention right now. One thing was for sure, Solomon was going to be very, very pissed.

The officer frowned and narrowed his eyes. There was something about Nagira that screamed that he was a good guy, but there was an air around him that said, "Beware, do not trust, at least not completely."

Then there were those whirly birds, those insignia that they bore. Kin's eyebrows dropped even further, if they had dropped much more than what they were they'd slip right off. Kin had always thought those people where behind everything, pulling certain strings. How ironic that they would attack just a day after he had talked to mother, if he could even bring himself to call her that anymore. Kin felt his muscles tighten and flex. Damn Motokita, now he had another reason to bring that bastard down. He stood there, gritting his teeth, and hissing under his breath, so much so that it had caught the attention of his friends.

"I just hate seeing them get away with so much," he said, nodding toward the direction the helicopter's had fled. Most of them seemed to accept that much, but there was something in the way that Nagira stared at him, that said as much as, _yeah, I've got things to hide, but I know that **you** do too._

Fair enough, Kin thought. I'll keep my books to my chest, and let you keep your chests to your desert isle, but sooner or later, we're going to have a one on one. Nagira seemed to read his mind, and chuckled silently as he turned away from him. This would be an interesting little game.

_So, that's the great Nagira, brother of Amon. _Kin smiled predatorily. _So far, I'm not real impressed._

Robin's paced quickened as she walked through the woods, to the church. It was nearly evening, and she wouldn't normally be seen here during this time, but there was something that urged her to go. _Danger, those people are in danger, I have to help them._

Amon had told her to ignore the feelings, to just push them to the back of her mind, but the young woman would not, could not do that. If God had given her these gifts, even through the use of science, then who was she not to use them for His good? And what better good was there, than defending the defenseless.

The woman picked up her pace, and soon she found herself at the edge of the door of the church. She blinked and slowly opened the door, pulling back as a puff of black smoke floated outward. She gasped, and initially began to run inside, to look for survivors, when Amon's training kicked in.

_Get a hold of yourself, Robin. It's not real smoke. Stop, think. Look at your surroundings, and wait for your opponent to make the first move. _It was her voice, but his words that sounded over and over in her mind. The young witch took a step back and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. She stood there for a long time, until finally she could hear tiny footsteps near the back of her.

"Your illusion is impressive," she said in a low tone. There was no sound except a minuscule cackle. It was male, and though strong, very weasel like.

"The files on you are right, girl. You do have a strong sense of the craft," the hunter said. "I'll enjoy gutting you." He had a strong Russian accent.

With a flick of motion, one that a normal human could not see, Robin pulled her glasses from her pocket, and slipped them on, spinning around and sending hot waves of air toward the hunter. But he was just as quick, there was no sign of him.

"Are you familiar with the legend of the Leshii?" his voice rang out. There was something to her left, a light of some kind. Robin spun and gasped as a huge train soared toward her, hooting and wailing for her to move.

"That's impossible," she hissed, and leapt out of its way. The locomotive spun and turned on its wheels, like a snake coiling for the strike. Robin sent flame after flame toward it, but it was no use, small flames were no match for the metal behemoth. She turned to run, but then screeched to a halt, as the vehicle slowed and vanished into air. What had the hunter just said?

"The Leshii is a fairy, a forest man of my country," his voice taunted. "He is lord of the forest, and is capable of taking many forms." As the train disappeared, so the hunter reappeared. He had long red hair, his body was very hairy, and he was wearing his clothes backwards. He smiled through his gangly beard and mustache, his eyes dark and twinkling like black twilight crystals. "He would cause much mischief, before killing his prey. Of course the Leshii, is only legend, myth." He rose his hand dramatically and sang something in his native tongue before looking back at Robin. "Of course, I am very real, and have all of his powers."

"What did you do to Kano and his family?" she snapped, sending twin flaming arcs in his direction. The hunter leapt on his toes, and swiftly avoided both of them.

"Just convinced them that the church was haunted," he said mockingly. "After all they were only useless homeless peasants, not much good for anything else but a laugh." He cackled as she screamed and leapt high into the air, disappearing again.

As he vanished, a flock of crows took his place and swooped down on the girl. The pecked and clawed at her, tearing her dress and flesh, before she could zero in on them and scare them off with a ball of fire.

"Speaking of good laughs, the Leshii was known for giving his prey the last one," he cackled yet again from the shadows. As Robin spun around in circles, looking for him, large trees seemed to appear from no where, and surround the girl. "Course I'm the only one allowed to have the last laugh here, so won't pull his tickling trick with you."

Before she could do anything, a quick kick to her gut, pushed her into one the trees, and its branches swooped down, grasping her arms and legs, pulling her arms up over her head. She struggled, but the tree might as well have been made out of iron than wood. Four long roots pulled themselves from the ground, and hovered over her body for a second, before belting her with quick slashes.

"Oh no, that doesn't seem quite right, the mythical Leshii would not stop, and neither shall I," he chuckled. "You see, gifted in the craft as you are, there is much more you would have still needed to learn girl."

"The same goes for you," she gasped, closing her eyes. "Lesson one, never use wood to attack a witch with fire powers!" Robin pulled herself up to her full height and smiled.

Flames raced around her body, in a spiraling circle, and then launched out at the trees, liking at their wooden flesh. The illusions seemed to scream in pain, and through the sounds of those screams, Robin heard the sound of her opponent, hiding near one of the trees.

"A coward always like to hide in the shadows, don't they?" she asked, her voice low and in control. With a flex of her muscles, the girl snapped the branches away from her body and engulfed the illusion that attacked her with a ball of flames.

The hunter howled with rage, and raced forward, running straight into Robin's foot. The witch snapped her left arm upwards, and caught the hunter with a massive uppercut. She spun again, and caught him in his midsection, bringing him down with karate chop to the back of his neck.

He pulled himself up, and vanished into the air, a large brown bear appearing behind the girl. Robin ignored the beast, and focused on an area just to the left of her. She squinted her eyes, and the hunter again screamed, throwing his ragged shirt to the ground.

"Hiding in the shadows only works, where there are shadows to hide in," she said calmly. Looking toward the sky, Robin sent a wave of flames into the sky, illuminating early night sky. It had the effect she wanted, double fold.

She'd been right; he could only use his craft when he was standing in darkness, using the shadows to create his illusions. Plus with the sky lighted up as it was, she had him staring up toward it, probably wondering what the hell she planned to do with that. Before the realization struck him, she rushed forward, landing well placed kicks and fists.

He landed to the ground with a grunt and attempted to pull himself to his feet, scowling at her, "The files I stole said nothing about that," he hissed.

"That's what you get for stealing," she said calmly. He howled and pulled a blade from his pocket, but didn't get the chance to use it. With clarity of thought, Robin struck the hunter to the ground and incinerated him. All that was left was a large pile of dust.

Robin quickly cleaned the mess up, and said a quicker prayer that Kano and his family were indeed all right, and would return.

But one thing bothered her, who had files on her, other than Solomon, or the STN-J, both of whom it was impossible to steal files from, and how had this man managed to get them? Or had he at one time worked for one of the two, and decided to go out mercenary style, to hunt witches, like that hunter from America. A shiver of dread raced down her spine. This hunter had been annoying as hell, but something told her that he was nothing compared to the power of the American Hunter. And somehow, she felt the other woman closing in on her, like the opposite side of a magnet, racing to meet its cousin.

_Why is it that I feel I'm in for the fight of my life?_

**_Well Sparky16, I hope these three chapters qualify as a well read update soon . The same for the rest of you! Anyway I'll try and update with at least two more chapters sometime in at least October. _**


	7. Flames of a Past

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: The Flames of A Past

After the group was rounded up by Nagira's men, they were taken into his apartments, to hide and recover. Michael was placed in a special ward of the apartment complex, where doctors were busily working on him with each passing moment. The boy would live, but would almost certainly lose his arm.

_That's going to drive him nuts, _Doujima thought, paging through a woman's magazine as she waited in the hall next door. _No more massive flights into the internet for him. He'll be lucky if he can play landmine, or solitaire. _

Nagira's doctors insisted that there might be a procedure that would let them replace his arm with either a prosthetic one, or with a cyborg-like contraption, allowing him to do the things he liked to do. After a long hesitation Director Kosaka decided to let them use their best judgment on the operation, but if Michael did not need either replacement, if it cost too much money, if it would cost the boy his life, then forget it. Michael would understand.

Doujima frowned. _Sure he would._ She wasn't quite sure why she had been the one selected to baby sit the boy, but everyone in the group, especially Nagira, had insisted on it. Well, she knew why _he_ had insisted. Better to let her watch over the injured that plague him with questions he was not ready to answer yet.

So there she sat, sitting in a light white plastic chair, her back complaining about how uncomfortable it was, in a bright whitish blue hallway. She looked up from her magazine, and watched Michael's chest rise and fall, his eyelids fluttering as he dreamed. The young woman looked at her watch, and sighed, two hours they'd been here. She wanted to think how boring this all was, but hated feeling like the wicked witch, leaving the kid alone. Resignedly she put down her magazine, which she had read from cover, to cover, and picked up another one, with a cute little woman, in an even cuter swim suit. The eighteen year old smiled, stroked her chin, and studied the suit until her hand went for her purse, and out came a piece of paper and a pen, jotting down the maker of it, the price, and her clothes size. At least this vigil wouldn't all go to waste.

In another part of the complex sat the rest of the STN-J, their eyes on the windows of Nagira's office, waiting for the police to arrive, bearing questions that not one of them really wanted to answer. That wouldn't be able to be helped though. There were too many gawkers who watched the attack, and then watched the forced retreat from Raven's Flat. Many of them had gasped at Michael's condition, and despite his best efforts it seemed like not many people believed Nagira's story. A few of them followed the group to his apartments, and then called the police, and so here they waited.

"Well one good thing about this, is that the Director has many friends in high places in the police department," Sakaki said, holding his head between his knees.

"Kin does too, isn't that right?" Karasuma asked, looking over at the former officer. He smiled awkwardly and shrugged.

"Don't know if I could call any of the higher ups, my buddies, but I know a few minor officers," he said in a very tired tone. _And would rather not have to talk to any of them right now._

Nagira sat on the outer edges of his desk, for some reason constantly looking at a certain door to his right, and flinching when he was caught. He crossed his arms and smiled at Karasuma, who frowned and studied his features. That made him flinch again, and sent him off on a whistling spree, trying to avoid her glare. _Damn it to hell, she could pass for Mika's sister._

A blaze of motion caught his attention, and he nearly choked on his spit as the woman made a beeline toward the door. "Hey, wait a minute," he stammered.

She paused for a second, and shot him a look. "What?" she snapped.

With a whirlwind twist of his legs, that would make any break dancer jealous, Nagira pounced off the table and leapt toward the door, blocking it with an arm. "Look, I have a lot of clients who are in those halls, whose privacy I absolutely guaranteed. Having someone like you enter this door would smash that all to pieces."

"And just who are these clients of yours?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Are you dense woman?" he shouted, interesting a little too loud, and looking at the door. "If I told you their names that would be just as bad as letting you waltz right in there."

She stared at him for a moment, and snatched his arm, swiftly bending it around his back and at an arch. "I think you better explain yourself," she said, the sound of her voice hot and bitter.

"Karasuma," Director Kosaka snarled. He narrowed his eyes and put his hands on his waist. "That is enough of this."

"Director," she began.

"I won't warn you again," he howled, his eyes narrowing with deadly ferocity.

The woman stared at her boss for a long time, her eyes looking hurt, like a child who had just been chastised by a favorite uncle for the first time. She stared at Nagira with warm bitter frustration, and then at the door, and back at him, before releasing his arm. She walked down the stairs, and looked at her director as she passed. "This is a mistake," she murmured as she passed him.

"Then let it be my mistake, and think nothing more of it," he snapped between clenched teeth.

The odd situation quickly dispersed as fast as it happened when the director's assistant barreled through the doors. "Director Kosaka sir," he said through labored breath, "the police are here."

As on cue, four Japanese officers walked into the room and glanced at the small group. There was a fifty year old man with a big belly and graying hair, who looked ready to retire – or eat his weight in donuts, whichever came first – who took the lead. Behind him was a tall, wiry man with short black hair, and sunken in eyes. He wore large thick glasses which slipped from his long thin nose, and had small tuffs of hair under his bottom lip. In his hand he held a pad and pencil, and he looked ready to turn loose "righteous" fury on the group for making him work so late.

The other two officers were both young looking things. The third was a very small man, probably right out of the Academy, who was giddy at getting his first case, and shook like he either had crapped his pants, or had too much caffeine in his system. His hair was blonde, and his eyes were deep chocolate brown. There were freckles on his nose, and he kind of carried the image of an all American farm boy about him, except for the fact that he was not American.

It was the last officer that caught Kin's attention, and not in a good way. She also looked like she had come straight out of the Academy, and had the body of a cheerleader. Her hair was light brown, as were her eyes, but there was strength in them that could not be matched by her three compatriots. She flexed her fingers and memorized each aspect of them room, the windows, the doors, the escape routes. With a firm determination she grinned and nodded to herself that she had done an accurate analysis of the situation. Then her glance fell on Kin, and her smile only widened with shock, though it lasted only a few seconds.

Director Kosaka indeed knew the two older men, and was quickly telling them jokes and laughing with them. A few minutes later he introduced the group of officers.

"This is Captain Kaemon Danno, and Lieutenant Nikkiwa Horishima," he said pointing to the older man and then to the younger, both who bowed as he introduced them. He pointed to the youngest of the men and shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with you, though, or the young lady for that matter."

"I am Matsushita Yamamoto," the boy said with a grin.

Director Kosaka and the others nodded, and turned to the young woman. She smiled and stroked her hair.

"Her name is Sarah Tokutoyu," Kin said bitterly. He turned to her, and their eyes clashed with iron wills the gods wished they possessed. "And before you ask your next question, yes, she's my sister."

"Well, this should make things pleasant and very easy to deal with then," Director Kosaka said with a warm smile.

_Depends on your definition of pleasant._ Kin gawked at his sister, and waited his turn before answering certain questions from the officers. His blood pressure was rising, and he was sure that she could sense it too.

"That's an interesting tattoo, Ms. Tokutoyu," Sakaki said, looking at the winged figure on her right shoulder. He inched closer to examine it, but she backed away with a sly smile.

"Sorry fella, not on the first date," she giggled, her voice high and childlike, yet full of feminine charm and warmth. She covered the tattoo, and glared over at her brother, giggling as he squirmed. Looking at her superior officer, she motioned to him, and quietly asked if she could take her brother outside, after a few moments of thinking he nodded.

She turned to him and grinned, nodded toward the exit. He sighed and looked at her and rose to his feet, so much for a being very easy to deal with. What Sarah had in mind had nothing to do with the law.

"Tell them I am not going to come back," he snarled at her, as the sky grew pitch dark. Kin turned to his little sister, a year younger than himself and scowled. "I want nothing from that man, and I want nothing to do with them."

Like a stroke of lightning her hand reached out and pulled back his sleeve, a winged being with a fiery sword etched on his arm. "Is that why you got this then?" She narrowed her eyes and pulled back. "You are apart of the new enlightenment more than you could possibly know." She smiled and brushed his hair, "Don't you know your role in this whole play?"

"Let's not get dramatic, Sarah," he growled. He turned from her and crossed his arms. "I left that stage a long time ago," he said, his eyes beginning to water at the thought of graduation day, the first anyway.

"Father is growing anxious, and a little angry," Sarah said, leaning against the wall of the apartment complex. She smiled, and watched cars and trucks rush back and forth as if they were all participating in a race that none of them would ever win. There was a slight breeze that blew all around them, and rustled the bushes and trees.

"Like I give a flying fuck what he thinks," Kin roared, batting his arms around like a maniac. "I don't have a father."

"They won't like hearing that," she said, narrowing her eyes. Now her tone was starting to grow angry. "Father put in a lot of money with them, for this scheme of theirs, and if everyone doesn't play their part, I'm not really sure what they'll do."

"Again, I ask, why should I care?" Kin said, looking toward Nagira's door and hoping for the sanctity of the place. Well, maybe not sanctity, but there was a very sanctuary feel about it, much more so than Raven's Flat had for him.

"You are one of the Knights of Malake, servents to the Grigori, who are ministers to the Holy Archons of the angel Puruel," she howled, lowering her voice only when she realized someone might overhear.

"Take your fanaticism somewhere else, like medieval Europe," Kin snarled.

"You can't escape who you serve for much longer," his sister hissed, turning her head away from him. "Apocalypse is coming soon, and when it does, you _will _play your part."

Kin frowned and looked around the scenery scratching his head. When he finally managed to drive her nuts enough to ask what he was doing, he smirked evilly and crossed his arms. "I think there must be a baseball game somewhere around here, because there's a screwball loose by me."

Sarah shook her head and turned away, just in time for her superiors to exit the building. Before they could hear her, she turned back to him and jutted out a finger. "Just so you know, it was _me_ who had you investigate that case three months back, she said her smile dark and shadowed. "Father had me do it."

Three months ago that bit of news might have driven him over the edge, now it only made him smirk right back at her. "You can tell father that, that was his major mistake. _If_ this end of the world scheme of yours happens, you can expect me to be one of the major players to stop you."

"Have it your way," she snarled. She followed the other officers and got behind the wheel of one of the patrol cars. Her partner looked at her, back at her brother, and then shivered at the weight of the other man's glance.

Kin sighed as they drove off, and looked down at his feet. "I kind of wish fate had been kinder to me," he whispered.

_**Well time to answer some reviews!**_

**_Sakaki's Girl: Well if that's the case, all it means is I can create my own name for him !_**

**_Sparky 16: Glad you liked the last three chapters, I may go on line sooner than I thought, so it may not be three chapter updates, but it will be hopefully at least two chapters._**

**_Lynx: Kool a new face! Well I'm glad you like it so far, and do not worry, the entire group will be reunited in a very short pace of time, and Robin and the American Hunter? It won't take them long to bang heads now, either, but first the gang has to deal with a coming Mafia war._**

**_And hang on to this, ladies and gents before this story is over, one of the people who Robin holds most dear will no longer be among the living! chuckles evilly okay so on to chapter 8! _**


	8. Sparks of Reunion

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Sparks of Reunion

The next day the STN-J members woke up to birds singing in their trees, and fire trucks wailing toward the still burning Raven's Flat. There was no longer any denying it, Solomon's Japanese Headquarters was gone, and gone for good. The higher ups in Europe weren't going to be very happy to replace such an expensive building, but at least no one who was important had died.

Michael still lay in the emergency room, connected to life support as Nagira's surgeons decided the best procedure in which to fix the boy, while Nagira's male assistant, Goro Kyoshi, took Doujima's place, waiting for the doctors to come out with some kind of news. The young girl wasn't sure what to make of him at first, he seemed like he was in his late thirties, early forties, and didn't say much, with the exception of a sympathetic frown at the boy, and a sly smirk at her, letting her know that there was nothing to worry about -- at least that's what she had hoped it had meant.

Doujima tried to track down Nagira, to force him to tell her what was really going on. How could he know what kind of attack was heading their way, who exactly was his informer, what had he meant by _we_? After a half hour of looking for him, she sighed and gave up the ghost, heading for bed, determined that after a few hours of sleep, she would try to find him again.

On the orders of Director Kosaka and Nagira, the other members of the group split up and spent the long night in a conjoined bed room, so that if there was another attack, at least they would not be separated. Kin had laid in the large rectangular room, eyes wide open, listing to Sasaki snore his ear off, and Karasuma mutter some kind of obscenity as Doujima entered, trying to cheer everyone up by making this whole thing a slumber party, not that he would have been able to sleep anyway.

His mind raced back to the phone call with his mother, and then the attack, followed by his sister's arrival, trying desperately to bring him back into the fold. Joining the police force in Tokyo, Japan, Kin had seen all manner of religious nut jobs and crazies. He'd read about countless horror stories of survivors who had managed to break away from the psychopathic leaders of such cults, and felt a form of kinship with them, if anything was family, these brave souls were his, not those who claimed the same blood as he.

There was another thing that disturbed the young man as he lay there on his cot. He knew somewhere, in this complex, were Amon and Robin, or at least they had been here just a few weeks ago. He shook his head; no they were definitely still here, Nagira's insistence that Karasuma not enter that one door proved that. But even so, if Amon and Robin were not ready to show themselves to the group, what if their united enemies were determined to do just that? Forces of darkness extremely determined to flush the two fugitives out into the open and . . ., and then what? Kin frowned and rolled back and forth as he thought. Michael and he were the only two people in STN-J who knew that the two of them were here, and Michael was in no condition to start talking to anyone.

And so it went throughout the night, only the second night of his young life in which he was incapable of sleeping even a few minutes. Finally, just as the sun began to rise he rose to his feet, managed to stumble into the main office of Nagira's business and plop onto a chair, staring longingly at a brewing cup of coffee.

"You a night hawk, or just can't sleep well in a new place?" a feminine voice said behind him. He turned, and looked at Mika Hanamura glowering at him. She was a young woman with a slim figure and very steady eyes, eyes that were prepared to nail him to the chair if he said anything that displeased her.

Kin smiled sheepishly and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "I'm afraid I'm the type that can't sleep when there's too much going on in his busy mind," he said, "we paranoid folk tend to be funny that way," he continued with a chuckle.

The response took her back for a moment, and for a second she favored him with a smile of her own. "You're with the STN-J, aren't you?" she asked, walking toward the coffee pot, and pouring three cups of the dark brown liquid.

He refused the sugar, but gladly took the dark liquid, and downed it nearly all at once. "Hence, the paranoid part of my personality," he said with the best charming smile he could muster.

"You also used to be a police officer too, unless I miss my guess," she said, refilling his glass and glaring at the "forbidden door" with heat seeking laser beams coming from her eyes.

"The lady is starting to catch on for my reasons of paranoia," he said bursting out laughing. Again she smiled at him, but put a long slender finger to her lips. Kin blinked for a moment and ran his hands through his hair. "Sorry." He looked at her and cocked his head to one side, declining a third cup of the stuff.

"Aren't you going to ask what we do at STN-J?" he asked.

She looked at him for a very long time, her lips pinched and her back straight, stiffer than a board. "If I never worked here, I might consider it," she began, "but the question is, do _you_ know what you do over there?"

He felt his skin crawl and leaned back. For the second time in these few months he had been asked that by someone he had just met, and it sent him mind racing. Kin shook his head and opened him mouth as if to answer, but the rest of his group decided to take the time to walk into the room just then, as did Nagira.

Karasuma tried desperately to crane her neck, to spy who might be behind those doors, as the tall, white clothed man walked through them, but he used his left shoulder to block her view, and smiled closing it as quickly as he had opened it.

"Better luck next time," he said between a massive yawn, and then ducked as Mika tossed the coffee cup at him. It shattered against the wall, and brown liquid slowly ran down it, staining its light brown surface.

"That was my favorite cup," Nagira protested, looking at his assistant with big, injured, puppy dog eyes.

"If you hadn't slept in so late, or should I say stayed up so late gambling, and came in late, and then slept in, you wouldn't have had to loss it," she snapped, as if she were a crocodile ready to slam its jaws down on its prey. Mika rose to her feet and pushed him aside, and cleaned up the mess. "You really need to get your priorities straight, boss."

"I have them straight," Nagira whined, raising his arms. From the corner of his eyes he could see the small group stare at them with odd expressions, and he started chuckling.

"Sorry about that," he laughed. He nodded to his assistant, and she sighed with bitter eyes and finished her cleaning, and fixed them all the rest of the coffee, before moving on with her paperwork.

"I thought I had rough assistants," Director Kosaka said, sipping his coffee, and looking across the table from Amon's older brother. The taller man smirked and rolled his eyes.

"Can't be helped I guess," he said with a sigh. "That girl keeps me grounded, without her I might not even remember where it is I live at times." He flashed the group a playful smile, and then leaned back in his chair.

"In all humor aside I doubt that the police will be able to catch the criminals who attacked us," Kosaka said. The air seemed to grow thick, and clouds rolled over the morning sun as he reflected. "What happened was almost nearly an inside job. There was no way any one just off the street could know where in Raven's Flat to strike and at what appropriate areas to concentrate their attacks, either."

"I was starting to think the same thing," Karasuma said, stroking her chin. "I thought it was the mafia at first, but there was no way they could have known that we would have all been there, or where we keep our extra weapons."

"It was the mafia," Kin announced suddenly, ferociously. The group, startled at his anger, turned to him. The young man blinked for a moment and then chuckled, stroking his head. "Sorry, didn't get much sleep." He sent a playful glare in Sasaki's direction, hoping to distract them and then continued. "Before I joined the STN-J my division was very familiar with Motokita and his gang." That much was true, "I recognized the symbols on the attack helicopter and matched it to his group."

"I knew the bastard was rich, but strong enough to be able to buy his own military helicopter?" Kosaka frowned and leaned his head on the palms of his hands.

"He has more than just that one," Kin continued, "he has a fleet of them, plus a secret air base where he stashes them when not using them."

"If Tokyo police knew about this, then why --," Doujima protested, her anger growing. Her parents were very powerful members of Solomon, she herself was a high ranking agent in its European fronts, but preferred to stay here in Japan, with her friends. She knew a lot about the Yakuza warlord witch. Still to see injustice down like this made her blood boil.

"He's a witch, right?" he snapped back at her. "Of course at the time my division didn't know that, still doesn't know that," that was partially true, there were a few of them that did, but that was a story for another time. "So he was able to hide them from us, and apparently is still able to hide them very well."

"Shit," Sakaki shouted pounding his fist into the couch in which he sat. "The Raven, this whole attack would have been to break the Raven out of our hands," he snapped.

"Sakaki, the Raven is in a highly guarded area of the Factory, not at Raven's Flat," Karasuma said, looking at him as if he had gone off the deep end.

"That's not exactly true," Kosaka said, slumping in his seat. All eyes were on him now. "The Raven was being transported to our headquarters for further questioning," he began. _We really should have considered renaming that place a long time ago, how ironic, the Raven was being taken to the Raven's Flat._ "He should have arrived just a few minutes before the attack began."

"And those goons on the lower ends of your headquarters were hustling some guy in chains into a dark van, which raced off afterwards," Nagira growled.

"So it looks like Sakaki was correct after all," Doujima sighed. Everyone lowered their heads out of frustration, and was quieter than a mouse. The teenage woman's head snapped up, her eyes wide with anger, "But it's just not right," she growled. "Motokita always seems five steps ahead of us, how is that possible?"

"Perhaps Kosaka was correct in thinking that it was an inside job," Karasuma said; her voice strong and determined. "But who could have the access to all our files and cameras and war room?"

"It would have to be someone high up in the ranks of the STN-J," Kosaka said, crossing his arms.

"But you're the highest ranking officer there," Sakaki pointed out.

"But not in all of the STN-J," the older man admitted, "and definitely not in all of Solomon. There are even members of the Factory that are higher ranking than me."

"With access to everything that they would need to give Motokita the heads up?" Nagira asked. He stroked the bottom of his neck and shook his head. "I really don't buy it, you guys, what kind of group is run like that?"

"One that likes its privacy and its little army ants to do anything without questioning," Kin snapped. They were staring at him again, but this time with knowing eyes.

The STN-J for a long time had killed people in the name of scientific research without even knowing that they were doing it. It was only until Robin showed up, that they began thinking for themselves again. There was a new realization that circled the room, and most of their heads bowed in sorrow . . ., Robin. How they could use her help now.

Kin watched them and eyed Nagira, who likewise was watching, edging him along with bowing his head too. It wasn't time just yet for them to know what was going on, on that front, though both men suspected that certain of these individuals were secretly admitting to themselves that the young witch and her guardian were both very much alive.

It was a secret that, although Nagira desperately wanted to keep until the best possible time to reveal, would not stay secret for long. In fact, it would not even last to see the end of the day. Just after breaking up their meeting, four hours after it had begun, the group could hear tires screeching, and not just tires belonging to one car, but hundreds of them. Kin felt his back tighten, and he eye Nagira, who was already dashing toward the window, to see what was going on.

An endless line of short, black cars followed each other, until they made a perfect half circle around the complex. Behind them were small military units, and behind those were larger artillery units, all of them baring the same insignia that had been on the attack helicopter the night before.

"This didn't take them long to find us," Kin said, reaching for his gun. The officer flung himself behind a couch, and came face to face with Mika, her eyes wide and shaking, in her hand a rather nasty looking knife. He smiled at her and lowered her hands, "Let's leave that until absolutely necessary, okay?"

She swallowed, and nodded her head. When her employer bellowed her name, she shot up, like a ground hog for the first day of spring and looked at him. He pointed down a hall and ordered her to call for back up, and then to go to the hospital area and help Goro and the doctors protect Michael.

After she had gone, he took his place next to his front door, leaning against the wall and narrowed his eyes. "Nothing like a shoot out to start the day," he said with dry humor.

"I don't see anything funny about this," Sakaki said, brandishing a new gun. "There's more creeps out there than there was last night." He looked down at his clips and counted them mentally. "I've got enough ammo to last for at least an hour."

One by one, each of them admitted the same. "Then be careful not to take wasted shots," Nagira snapped. "The back up I called for should have enough ammo to let us stand here for at least three hours after that and by that time the police should arrive to help us with this problem of ours."

"Going to need every district in Tokyo for this," Kin groaned. From his place behind the couch he scanned the world outside of the windows, and narrowed his eyes. There were at least ten, if not more attack helicopters coming from different directions. "We're going to need the military too, maybe even the air force."

"I don't understand how they found us so quickly," Karasuma said quietly.

"Your buddy, the Raven probably identified my groups vans, and reported them to the big boss," Nagira said. "Unlike you guys, I'm listed in the yellow pages."

Kosaka flipped his cell phone off, and looked at the group. "I've just contacted the Factory, their sending what available units they can this way, but we better hope Nagira's forces come here first, or we'll end up slaughtered before they can do any good."

There was a tense moment of silence, as the mafia quickly moved everyone one the streets watching away into vans of their own, or back into their own houses. Both sides seemed to stare each other down, sweat and uncertainty lay thick in the air. Finally, after an agonizing amount of time, the mafia's forces raced forward with a deafening battle roar, and the bullets began to fly, shattering Nagira's windows, and punching tiny holes into his walls.

The STN-J returned fire almost immediately and the space between the two groups became thick with the stench of bullets and gun smoke. So far none of the thugs were able to penetrate too far toward the apartment complex, and Nagira thanked his lucky stars that he had recently purchased the whole thing, so he could put more people who did not want to be found, and just knew how to use guns to protect that secrecy to use.

He had children and the sick and elderly, including Michael, in the basement, where there were no windows, and unless his enemies had underground drilling vehicles could not invade there easily. There was an elevator that would evacuate these people to the top floor, and only headed to the top floor, should his enemies break in, that elevator was the only way to get into or out of the basement.

His more violent clients were on the first floor, and though their oppressors were cruel and evil, he'd shed no tears over his clients' deaths either. If the mafia truly wanted to take that floor, they'd take it with fifty dead bodies for ever inch that they took.

On the second floor, were much less guilty people, though not as innocent as the clients down in the basement. They could fire a gun, or fling projectiles with the best of them but the problem was there were a lot less of them on this floor than on the first.

The third floor was client free. It was practically a maze that one would get lost in unless he or she knew the current updated answer to the riddled walls. If the mafia made it up here, and Nagira didn't really doubt that they would, they'd have a hard time navigating the corridors and hinge doors to get to the fourth floor, where he and the STN-J were desperately fighting to keep their ground.

The mafia had succeeded in shooting out all of his apartment's windows, and had their less lethal helicopters move closer to the building, where their men could propel themselves down ropes and enter the floors that way, but it was a struggle just for the men to hang onto the ropes, and bullets flew out their directions, and many of them – body armor or not – dropped to the ground, oozing blood. Despite their losses, the cars and vans on the ground continually unloaded new reinforcements, and new cars and vans kept pulling up to the building all the time.

To make matters worse, the STN-J and Nagira could hear gun battles erupt all over the neighborhood, from many different blocks away. Police sirens were abruptly cut off as the sky exploded in flames, and the cries of the wounded echoed through the deadly day of violence. During the half hour of battle Kosaka's cell phone screeched to life, and he ducked under a table to speak. His skin turned ashen gray as he listened, and then told whoever had been speaking to him good luck, before hanging up.

"What's going on?" Karasuma asked, glaring in his direction.

"It's the Factory," he responded hoarsely. "They won't be able to make it here to help us; they've come under attack too."

"Damn it," the woman snarled. She spun on her heels and fired a volley of bullets at three of the criminals, dropping them like rocks and reloaded, pressing her back against a wall. "The police can't help, the Factory can't help," she turned to Nagira, "and where's your backup, cowboy?"

As much as he hated to admit it, the tall man did not know. "If they've ambushed the police and the Factory, it's a safe bet they've got my men pinned down somewhere in the lower levels of the complex," he said. "Which means they're probably inside, at least on the first floor," he dropped his used gun and reached for a sawed off shot gun, blasting the ropes that the criminals were using to shimmy down the side of the building.

"We're not going to be able to hold them out much longer from here," Sakaki said, his face and clothes damp with sweat. "I've only got enough ammo now for about ten maybe twelve more minutes of defense."

"I thought I told you to be careful with that," Nagira shot at him.

"I was," the boy shot back, "but none of us took into account that Motokita would send every Yakuza agent that either works for him or owes him favors down our throats."

"Nagira, is there any exit around here that we can take," Kosaka asked, wiping off dirt and muck from his forehead. The director was laying flat on his stomach, with an AK-47 that was nearly used up.

"Not without giving these guys a break in the fighting," the other man replied. "Even if we made a dash for it, there would be enough of these 'storm troopers' to slip in here and take us all out before we could get to the door." He dropped the shot gun, and reached for a small rocket launcher, with a grim smile. No one ever told the man that he was unprepared for nothing. He took aim, and fired it, just between two of their armored vehicles. The missile shot out, knocking him off of his feet, and landed right where he wanted, taking out not only the two machines, which had been raining death on the first floor, but also a good chunk of the others, and at least eighty of their men. Bodies and metallic shrapnel flew up everywhere, before slamming down on their former owners and comrades. Nagira didn't wait to whoop in victory, like some of the other defenders did. He armed it again, and this time aimed it at one of the helicopters, pulling the trigger before Kin could stop him. The sky flashed red and yellow, and the large dark whirlybird wailed as it limped to the ground, crushing many more of the goons at the bottom of the building.

"Smooth move," the officer growled at him, baring his teeth.

"What are you talking about?" Nagira hissed.

"Haven't you wondered why they were using their helicopters' missiles to attack us," the other man questioned, aiming his finger at the remaining air machines of mayhem hovering by the building. "It's because they didn't think we were that much of a threat."

"Until now," Karasuma said, her eyes widening with realization as to what Kin was getting at. She glowered at Nagira and howled from the deepest part of her throat. "They might have only been after something, now they won't hesitate to cut their losses and blow us all up."

Nagira stared at the two of them, and then at the others, and then at the helicopters, which were slowly pulling away. It almost looked like a retreat, and in a sense, that's what it was. There was no reason they had to stay within rocket launcher range. But there was more to it than that, they were moving out of range of the explosion that would be caused when they fired their _own_ missiles.

"Oh crap," he muttered. His eyebrows collapsed and he began thinking. There was no use in calling for an evacuation, the whole building was about to go up. Those in the upper floors could try and race toward the fifth floor, and the elevator that would take them to the basement, but the fact was only Nagira, and the STN-J would make it there before the explosion. So what was he going to do now?

As he sat there thinking, the sounds of a pair of foot steps echoed near the forbidden door, and got louder as the seconds past. All heads turned in the direction of the door, their hearts and minds racing as the enemy helicopters turned in position for the final countdown to ignition of the missiles.

The mafia down on the ground held their hands to their ears and listened for instructions, and then rushed away from the building, scrambling out the front door, to the safety of the other side of the street, if not the other side of the block. Those defenders still remaining in the first two floors screeched and howled with victory, until their collective cheers turned to shrieks of terror, as they realized why the enemy was retreating. Some of them on the first floor tried to barrel out into the open air, but were cut down by the Yakuza as soon as they left the safety of the building.

And just like that, it was checkmate. The Japanese mafia had brought down the STN-J and Nagira with one finally play of the hand. Now it was their turn to whoop and high five one another as the missiles lowered from their racks and stared greedily at the building they were about to demolish. Another few seconds, and the war that had begun last night would be over, and they would be able to go to Motokita with the charred bodies of the resistance, and be decorated heroes of his "family". And as an added bonus, with the Tokyo police force combating their forces, and losing as well, they could hand over the city to their crime boss on a silver platter. Some of them even whispered talk of "actual" revolution, which would bring down the current regime, and establish Hashi Motokita as the new emperor.

The seconds ticked down to a bare minimum, everyone counting them a different way, with a sob, a cheer, a punch to the shoulder of a partner in crime, but Nagira was counting them in a very different way, with the sounds of a pair of footsteps that were getting closer to the door. _If nothing else, the enemy got what they wanted here, in flushing them out._

Time seemed to stand still, and then as the first of the missiles launched from the helicopters, the door burst open, and a red clocked body with long bicycle pig tails and wearing tiny bifocals leapt over the banister in one solid movement, and stormed to the busted window, behind her, a large man wearing black clothes and an even blacker disposition, holding twin machine guns next to his chest.

Jaws dropped in the room, and it suddenly flooded with hope. Nagira turned to look at the many stunned faces, and saw two in particular that seemed to have a knowing feel about them. Kin and Director Kosaka both seemed to know, his brother had told him about Kin, that the two individuals standing by the window were still very much alive.

Doujima felt her skin crawl, in a very good way, and she bounced to her feet. "Robin, Amon," she shouted, calling their names. The young witch briefly turned to look at her, wearing a slight smile, and motioned with her hand for her friend to get down. Doujima stared for a second, and then realizing what was going to happen, obeyed.

Just as the missiles neared the building, Robin spun back on her heels, her pupils turning small as she concentrated, and the first of the tree missiles launched burst into flames, before they could do any damage. The building did rock, and knocked everyone off of their feet, but that didn't last. Robin rose to hers and looked at the new wave of missiles, narrowing her eyes each time. One by one, the deadly projectiles detonated before even reaching the building, some of them exploding before they got a chance to be launched from the helicopters, which took out the enemy aircraft too.

On the ground below, one of the thugs cursed an obscenity at the girl and took aim at her with his gun. That seemed to be the signal for Amon to begin his attack. Lowering the machine guns, he narrowed his own eyes and rained death from above with superhuman accuracy. Although not all of his hits kill, they all managed to wound or maim his victims.

For a moment Nagira watched his baby brother work, and then smiled. "Oh hell yeah, this is what I'm talking about," he whooped pumping his fists. He reloaded his rocket launcher and took aim at the enemy, firing his deadly package down to one of the more armored of their vehicles. A few seconds later, the entire STN-J group had taken their positions by the window, and was now gleefully pushing back the enemy. On the first and second floors the clients seemed to stare in amazement at the new offensive their side was on. It didn't take them long to add to the mayhem and confusion that the mafia was being plagued with now.

After taking out the last of the helicopters, Robin turned her attention to the armored vehicles and then to the smaller vans, that were pilling up with scared and freaked out Yakuza agents by the minute. There was evidence that the confusion on this block was rolling its way all over the neighborhood, as new gun shots rang out, and new police sirens began to wail closer and closer to Nagira's apartment building. A minute or two later some of Nagira's agents had entered the fourth floor, and were handing out new ammo to the STN-J crew, as well as taking their own places by the window, and busting other windows on the floor to take cover and fire.

Within the next hour, the Yakuza had completely given up the will to fight, at least on this block. Director Kosaka received many other phone calls from the Factory, some bearing good news, others bad, and back and forth and back and forth, like a yo-yo. Nevertheless, the police had finally broken through the endless borders of mafia concentration, and were now on the block were the major fighting was starting to die down. A few military forces accompanied them, and were now making swift work of any die hard fanatics that remained in the tired ranks of the mafia. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, one hundred and forty-three Yakuza agents threw down their used weapons and surrendered. The battle was over.

The next couple of hours were spent with interviews and interrogations by the police and military forces and a few news media groups. After it was all said and done, a few of the military forces headed off toward the Factory, to tell in ridding them of the criminal army, and the police took the criminals from this block into custody. Now the gang could successfully reunite, and explain what was happening.

"So all of this is because someone in Solomon is after you two?" Karasuma asked looking at Robin and Amon.

"Particularly Robin," Amon said. "Nagira warned us about some kind of American hunter, and Harry explained he had heard that there was a new threat within the agency itself."

"So that American hunter really is trouble," Doujima said, narrowing her eyes and putting her fingers on her lips.

"And you told me I shouldn't worry so much about it," Kin said, teasing her with his eyes. The young woman stared at him with a shocked expression and then stuck out her tongue, making him smile.

"Michael," Robin said softly. Everyone turned to look at her, at her green eyes turning soft and wet. "Will he be okay?"

"I don't see why not," Nagira said. "The Yakuza never made it to the fifth floor, so they never made it to the hospital ward. And the doctors told me that once they decide what to do with him, he'll pull through."

"And what do they plan to do with him?" Amon snapped quickly.

"They told me they haven't decided yet," Nagira said. He watched his brother rise to his feet, and head out the door. "Threatening them to make a decision isn't going to help Michael."

Amon paused and closed his eyes. They were going to need Michael's computer skills if they were going to get through this. "I know there are a lot of injured people now, but tell them not to take too long in deciding," he began. "Time is something we're running out of."

**_There you go Lynx; the gang is all back together, told you it wouldn't take too much longer. Now hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully before the 4th of September I'll be able to write a ninth, but no promises, as it is the 30th of August as I write this._**


	9. Inferno of War

WITCH HUNTER ROBIN: Inferno of War

**_Okay it's the third of September, and I go to my relative's house tomorrow, so I think I'll try and begin to write the ninth chapter. I don't know if I'll finish it tonight, but hopefully I'll have it in time to submit at least before if not on the 8th of September._**

Robin sat in a chair, watching the television, trying to come to grips with what had just happened earlier today. It was hard to understand that Raven's Flat was gone, and harder still to believe that the entire STN-J was back together. Well almost all of them; Michael was still in a coma but at least the doctors had decided what to do with him now. The computer boy would lose his right side, having it replaced with mechanical devices almost all the way up to his neck. Michael would have a fit, but at least he would be alive.

It hadn't taken long Amon to retake control of leadership of the STN-J's hunters, Karasuma grudgingly stepping aside as the "boss". So except for their headquarters, everything seemed to be back to normal.

"We need a plan of attack," Amon said, reading the constantly flowing reports as they came in. After the attack had been brought to an end, he had been wearing the same grim frown he had one right now.

Nagira had provided them with a new war room, not as high tech as what they were used to, but it would do for now. The bright afternoon sun shone in on them, highlighting their clothes and hair.

"Right now we've got to get our bearings together," Karasuma said. "We're short handed, and have little ammo, unless I've missed something."

"If we do not do something right now, we're only giving Motokita a chance to regroup and launch a bigger attack," the gothic man snapped back, pounding his fist on the table.

"Puh-lease," Karasuma snapped. "He's got all his available men fighting the police force and the Factory. How could he possibly have any more men to spare?"

"Something's not right," Robin said, looking at the group.

Kosaka looked at her with bright eyes and frowned, "What do you mean, Robin?"

"How is it that this Yakuza boss has so many people at his command? Wouldn't he need every crime boss under his command to pull something like that off?"

"We're pretty much certain that he does," Amon said.

"Even with all of them, it still seems like he has too many men at his disposal," the girl said.

Doujima giggled and patted Robin on her head, "Don't worry so much, okay? We have you here now, so there won't be too much trouble in defeating Motokita anymore."

"Except we still have to deal with the American hunter as well," Sasaki said. "We can't forget about her."

"No doubt that she's here in Japan by now," Nagira said. "I've talked to Harry, and he's been trying to find out more info about her for us."

A phone rang, and Doujima picked up her cell phone and answered it. They stood there and listened, and then hung up their phones, their faces deep and sorrowful.

"This war has just increased," Doujima said her eyes wet with tears. "The mafia is attacking our European facilities, my parents were killed."

They stared at her for a long time, none of them knowing what to say to comfort her. The eighteen year old dropped to her knees and started to weep bitterly, the aura of the room growing thicker with shadows and cool breezes, as if her parents' spirits had come to the room to watch their daughter in her despair.

"This is why we have to strike as soon as we possibly can," Amon snapped, pounding his fist on the table.

"And we'll end up just like Doujima's parents for all our efforts," Karasuma snarled right back at him. "We can't run around pretending to be cowboys and cowgirls, like you and your brother like to be."

"Hey, now wait a minute," Nagira said, shooting to his feet.

"This is pointless," Kosaka shouted. Everyone had seen him angry at one point and time since they met him, but nothing like he was now, rage and Hell's fury pouring over his body. "Fighting amongst ourselves will do nothing but weaken our position, and give the Yakuza what they need to bury us."

"We have the high ground now," Sasaki said, pointing at Robin. "Her powers have grown, and we have Amon back with us, so that should give us the edge we need to finish this," he stopped and looked at Doujima, still crying on the floor. "At least here in Japan."

"Except I'm sure that Motokita somehow knew Robin and I was still alive, and I'm equally sure he has a back up plan with dealing with us."

"Let's not forget that these attacks have been kind of at random as well," Nagira said. "They were probably aimed with trying to make you two show yourselves before you were really ready to do so."

Robin, now kneeling by the tearful Doujima, looked up at the man, her eyes growing with sudden understanding. "They brought in the helicopters knowing that I was here, knowing that we were here."

Amon jerked as he looked at her and looked down at his feet, cursing his blindness to the situation. "They didn't just want to flush you out, they wanted to know how strong you had gotten, what you could do or couldn't do."

"And we played right into their hands," Kosaka said with a sigh.

"And Michael, and Doujima's parents and dozens of others are paying for it," Karasuma groaned, placing a hand on her face.

Kin looked down at his shoes and sighed, "Then that's that, the only way the Yakuza could estimate what we would do, before we did it, is that someone in the STN-J or perhaps in Solomon in the whole, is giving them information."

"Or they're part of the Yakuza," Sasaki said.

"Which means," the young eighteen year old said, her eyes moist with her tears, and forcing words past sobs, "that Motokita, is probably not the one calling the shots."

"A puppet, using puppets to get some shadow master's job done," Nagira said. "It's a maze, within a maze, within an enigma, wrapped in a riddle."

Amon looked up at his older half brother and frowned, "What are you, some kind of D.C. comic book villain?"

Nagira looked at his brother and shook his head, "I've never been one to dress in horrible green with question marks," he chuckled. "I prefer to think of myself as a Japanese Bruce Wayne."

"Except you've never been one to dress in black either," his brother said raising an eyebrow.

"I didn't say I was brooding Batman, that's your department, I just said that . . ."

"All right, enough," Karasuma said. Her voice bounced off of the walls and everyone stared at her with shocked expressions. "We need to stop with the childish come backs and one-liners and focus on how we're going to survive this!"

"We need to do more than just survive this Karasuma," Amon said. "We have to end this, or the world is going to get swallowed up in madness."

"It seems like our fate to expose controversy and government conspiracies to light," Robin said, lowering her head.

"I don't believe in fate," Karasuma said.

"Maybe its time you started to," Kin replied.

Kosaka looked at the group and crossed his arms. "Very well, I've made up my mind."

They turned and looked at him. "Sir?" Sasaki asked.

"With our hand forced, and Robin and Amon coming back into the framework, we've gone on the offensive, we've pushed back a small fraction, perhaps even a medium sized fraction," he turned and looked at Kin, inquiring without saying a word. The former Japanese police officer shrugged and shook his head. "We've pushed back a fraction of Motokita's force then, at any rate. Tokyo's police force is battling along side with the Factory with Motokita's other troops. I can't say what Solomon will do about this attack in the European front, but history says that those who back off of the offensive, once they've entered it, end in the trash heap. I personally do not want to be dumped into the trash."

"The best place we could strike, or investigate is the Opera House again," Kin said. "We never did catch him there, thanks to the shadow throwing monkey wrenches in our gears, but I've got a strong hunch there's more about that building than just singing going on there."

"We all know that," Amon said, and then looked down at the paperwork on this mental witch who controlled the Yakuza so completely. He'd been brought up to date with who they were tracking long before he and Robin revealed themselves, thanks to Michael's coded email to him.

"How funny that a man who supposedly supplies funds to war orphans can so openly and arrogantly snub his face in order, and declare war on the innocent," Doujima snapped; her eyes hard and bitter. "I'm going to love frying his testicles over a hot open flame and laughing at his agony."

"Heat not a furnace for yourself so hot, that it do singe yourself," Kin said. Everyone looked at him and blinked. The officer smiled and shrugged. "Shakespeare, King Henry VIII."

"Nice to know we have an actor in our mists," Karasuma taunted bitterly. "But what good will that do us?"

"Hot heads will get us no where, and those who want revenge will only find sorrow," the young witch, holding the young hunter, said. The eyes of the room turned on her and she smiled. "Robin Sena, Nagira's office." They looked at her, and slowly one by one they began to laugh.

When they were done, Robin helped Doujima to her feet, and brought her back to the table. Amon looked at her and nodded, as if to say, good work, and then turned his gaze on all of them.

"Okay, I think it's safe to say that we all needed that," he said, eyeing Karasuma particularly as he spoke, daring her to dispute him. When she didn't, he continued speaking. "I'll also admit that it would be a fools' gambit to rush in with guns blazing, but we are going to have to bring this conflict to an end before we're all swallowed by shadows."

"I still don't like this," Karasuma finally managed to say.

"No one is asking you to," Amon shot back quickly. "But it's something that has to be done."

"So then what's first?" Doujima asked.

"With Michael out of it, for a little while anyway, we're going to need another hacker, or at least someone with decent computer skills, and an aptitude for research."

"Where are we going to find someone like that?" Sasaki asked. "I mean, we can't possibly clone Michael, and expect it to be mature in the time that we need it to be."

"We won't need to," Amon said. The group continued to stare at him, the silence in the room thick and unbearable. "Harry has connections with certain individuals in the States, as well as in other countries. He knows a certain individual who might be useful to us."

"So then there's _another_ Michael out there?" Sasaki asked, in mocked shocked emotion.

Amon smiled agitatedly, "In so many words, yes. But this individual is much more than just a computer whiz, and a researcher." Anther bit of uneasy quietness filled the room before Amon mercifully broke it, "He's a water witch, who's fought the hunter."

"And he lived? What, she wasn't interested in killing him, or he's that strong?" Kosaka asked.

"From what I gather, he wasn't her main target, she had no idea he was what he was, until he used his abilities to help the people she was attacking."

"So in short, she got caught off guard, and he got lucky," Nagira said. His brother looked at him and nodded his head.

"But that does not make him weak, his abilities from what I gather and considerable, no where near a match for Robin, and probably not that much a match in the long run against the hunter, I was told she was also attacked by a young girl who was also a witch, whose mother the hunter had killed." Amon could sense the shock in the air and raised a hand, "I have no idea where the girl is, but she's younger than Robin. As to the extent of what she can do, I don't know. But this American witch might be the key we need in turning the pendulum the other way, toward our enemies."

"Unless they know about him, and our interest in him," Doujima said.

"Which is why, you and Sasaki are going to the Tokyo Airport and wait for him to come to you, and bringing him back here," Amon said with a large cat like smile on his face.

"Say what?" the two hunters asked, rising to their feet.

"Harry's connections are getting the man out of the predicament he's in right now as we speak, and are getting a flight to Japan."

"And we know he'll agree to come here, how?" Sasaki asked.

Once again Amon smiled that cat like grin, "He's an Otaku, a big anime fan. Never been to a convention before, but the chance of going to the country where it all started is like a dream come true for him."

Nagira chuckled until tears came to his eyes. "Let me guess, he thinks he's won a trip to some kind of anime studio or something, right?"

Amon said nothing as he stared at his brother, his eyes narrowing. "What of it?"

"And he'll agree to help us out, once he's learned that we've tricked him, why?" Karasuma snapped.

"I'm no Zaizen," Kosaka said with a sly smile, "but leave those details to me. I'll find some way to convince him."

"And if Michael recovers," Karasuma began.

"He _will_ recover," Robin snapped.

The older woman looked at her for a long time and then shrugged. "When Michael recovers, then what are we going to do with this American?"

"Their combined skills will only help us out of the mess that we're in," Amon said with a shrug. "Any other questions?"

"We know what Doujima and Sasaki are going to do, but what about the rest of us?" Kin asked.

"You and Karasuma can investigate your Opera House theory," Amon said. "Get a feel of the place, and of the people who work there, but change clothes and keep a low profile, we don't want Motokita too suspicious. Robin and I will do what we can for the Factory without revealing ourselves to the police units in the other combat zones." He turned to his brother, "You have your doctors get Michael back on his feet as fast as they can," and then turned to his director. "What ever you can think of to do, Director Kosaka, will be much appreciated."

The director smiled and stroked his chin. "I think I can pull some strings so the officers at the front have no questions for your and Robin's intervention on our behalf, and I can call in some favors so this American witch can come through here without having to deal with customs too much."

"Good, then now that we know what all our jobs are, let's get too it." Amon went to walk out the door, paused and turned to Doujima and Sakaki, "Bring in some files on Motokita and the Yakuza, and get a wireless laptop with you when you get the American, so he can get to work."

One by one they left the room, each one knowing their mission, each knowing what was at stake. They were on the offensive now, and with luck, they'd stay there. But none of them knew that darkness was everywhere, none knew that the devil's agents were keeping an eye, even here in this small office, in the form of a small glass dove that a beautiful agent had given to Nagira as a gift.

Pope Land II sat on his bed, staring at the small television before him, watching wars and rumors of wars, famine, plague, and every kind of suffering imaginable and unimaginable to human mind race through the screens. He sighed sadly and put his head in his hands. St. Malachy, an Irish mystic had prophesized that soon the Papacy, and Rome, along with the world would end by the twenty first century, the last two popes being the one of the olive branch, and the last named Peter II. Fr. Juliano, now pope Lando II was a Benedictian, their mark being the olive branch, and he very narrowly decided to call himself Pope Benedict XVII, but hoping to overturn the prophesy, and teach young members of his faith their history, named himself after the first Lando.

Now he was no longer sure if what he had done or even his acceptance to this role was appropriate. Evil seemed to be everywhere, it seemed to claw its way into public life, and reveal its horrid head. No one doubted it existed anymore; fanatics burned poor people who didn't believe as they did, or were born different than what was "deemed" acceptable; to death, or bombed buildings. The name of God, which was supposed to mean a feeling of peace and tranquility, was being used in the order of chaos and disruption, and darkness. And what was more; it was pushing good people away from faith, and slipping them into another avenue of darkness. When Fr. Juliano heard the word faith, it no longer meant peace and love, but war and hate. It no longer belonged to God, but to the Devil.

Was his role truly to usher in the reign of the anti-Christ? To be the last message of hope before Peter the Roman brought the people of the world safely to the harbor, away from the storm? And the question then became, if that was true, how many people in the world would be left to bring to safety? How many people would openly reject the goodness of God and embracing this ever growing evil as their faith, either because they wanted gold, or through despair of life? There was no doubt, evil was winning the war, and the earth was hinged on a very dangerous tight rope hanging over the grave. _How many people can I convince to follow the light before my soul leaves for its judgment and hopefully reward?_

The elderly pope's shoulders sagged and he wept, the images of death, despair and destruction flashing before his eyes. Desperately he clutched onto his Rosary and prayed for the strength to continue running the race, for hours. When he felt he could no longer continue through his meditation, he set down the simple white beaded meditation string down, and lay in bed, letting sleep overtake him.

In the early morning he rose and said three more rosaries, giving each petal of the "rose garden" special attention to his Heavenly Mother, and then set it down, feeling refreshed and strengthened for a new day. And it was in that second of total relaxed emotions that a scene appeared before him, where he was standing on a ship made of wood hundreds of refuges escaping an army of darkness and their large fleets, bombing them at each side. Then as he watched, he was hit, died, rose from the dead, and lead the ship a second time, before handing the wheel of command to a very young Roman boy, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen, before he died yet again.

Then there was a second scene that flashed through his mind. He was standing in a large building, almost like a Congress building, thousands of priests, bishops, cardinals, even nuns were around all from various orders, listening to his words, some happy, many bitter and darkly angry as he called for new reforms, and a mission to build the Church in the customs of both the Old and the New, to allow the Mass to return to the way it had been before Vatican II, to make no qualms about the fact that priests were to stay celibate, and that only men would be allowed into the priesthood, but also to accept certain new ideas, nothing that would break the Church's standing on anything substantial, but in allowing the "mutants" rights in the eyes of the Church.

Then there was a voice, "What you have just seen is what will lead to the vision before it, you must be prepared to great agony and discomfort. A war the likes the world has never seen before will soon erupt on our planet and you must help lead my children into the arms of my Son, your Savior, so that the prince of this world will not corrupt their souls."

Pope Lando II knew who he was hearing, even though he had never seen her or heard her voice before today. He was listening to the words of the Virgin Mary. Being a man of science, Mary's virginity was one of the things he had the hardest time believing, and yet as years passed, and Robin came into existence, as well as dozens of new witches, he began to examine his skepticism and come to peace with it, not fully surrendering, but at least living with it with a truce.

"There is one more thing, my child that you must see, for it is important to your granddaughter to know," she said, her voice tender and soothing. "And no, my child, this vision is not a result of your love of brandy." She laughed, her tone as tender as a mother who was slightly amused, and yet a little embarrassed at something her two year old had said.

A new vision came into his mind, billions of soldiers, dressed in lavender and red standing at attention to some shadowy figures, who glared down at them like false gods, stood ready to doing their masters' unholy biddings. Juliano knew that these soldiers were hunters, all of them or witches trained as hunters. They listened to the silent orders of their masters and then began pumping their fists in the air, shouting "Hail Veinica, Hail Veinica, all hail the glory that are the Holy Archons the prophets of the angel, Puruel!" Behind this demonic army was a large banner, with a massive angel wings as large as a jet liners, bearing a mighty sword of flames. Juliano knew his angelology, and he knew that this thing wasn't the devil, but what or which angel it might be was a mystery. But what frightened him the most, was that the angel in the banner seemed alive, and very aware that someone was watching this unholy parade of vile. Its eyes glowed red and it growled, as it searched for the intruder.

And then the vision was over, and Juliano stood blinking his eyes and clutching his chest. He knew then, as if he ever had any doubt, that there was a God; such a vision of evil would have killed him without divine intervention. True, Mary had been the one to guard him, but she couldn't have done anything without the aide of her son, Jesus.

"I am not allowed to answer you questions as to whom these people are, my child, or as to the true identity of the angel, though my Son is keeping him in check with all the power of Heaven. But if mankind is allowed to fall under the shadow of this threat, they will surely embrace this darkness, and you and the Church will suffer like you have never done before.

"Mother," Juliano asked, his voice shaking, "is this creature truly an angel, or that of the vintage of Satan?"

"He was the last to fall from grace, my child," her voice said, her words slowly growing softer. "He was charged with guarding Paradise, but denied his post and was sent into the flames of ever lasting punishment. He is not Satan, but if he succeeds, as does his followers, then the power of Satan will be unleashed, crushing both saint and sinner in flames. You must pray daily, you must not falter; our Heavenly Lord has given you this post for this reason. The truth will be revealed, and His will, will be accomplished, but many will suffer hardship if the dark shadow of Puruel falls. The hunters must be vanquished."

"The hunters?" Juliano frowned, "You mean the Witch Hunters? Solomon?" there was no response. "_Madre Maria_," he called out, but still no response. Juliano, Pope Lando II was alone yet again. He swallowed and stiffened his body. "I'm not sure what you wish, Lord, but Your will be done. This, Puruel, and his dark band of human followers will not be allowed to destroy the world as long as I can help it."

The pope strode to his desk and sat down, taking out blank pieces of paper. He began to write down what he had seen, and then sealed it in an envelope, locking it back in his desk. Next he wrote down a second note and again sealed it, this one directed to his successor, which would tell him to read the note, and act on it, if he, himself could not before he died. Then taking numerous requests and informational papers he had gotten from bishops and cardinals from around the world he began reading, studying the issues, praying with extreme intensity as to what he would be doing. After many years of calls for it, there would finally be a third Vatican Council.

The shadow watched with just as much intensity as the pope worked, and as the STN-J scattered through their missions, and it chuckled. It wasn't the most powerful force in the Council of Ganesha, but it did lead Project Phoenix, and was a devoted follower of Puruel … well not as devoted as the American hunter was, but devoted enough.

But too many incidents had already happened to make it worried. That damn fool Motokita only did half the job, smoking out Robin and Amon, but not killing them, and its fellow council members, the Archons, or Holy Archons, or of course the Council of Ganesha, were losing patience with its delays. And the shadow was losing patience with Motokita. It scoffed at his ridiculous ambitions, the new emperor of Japan, fool! Once Puruel was released there would be no emperor of anything, until the angel deemed it so.

And speaking of religion, this new development with the pope was highly disturbing. The shadow had no idea what had possessed the old man, to whom he spoke, or what kind of work he was doing now, and that angered the shadow more than anything else. It was not a person who like being left in the dark.

The mysterious owner of the twin crimson eyes began to pace back and forth across its penthouse suite. What to do, what to do? It now knew the powers that Robin could call forth; it knew the pope would not allow himself to play the old beggar, waiting for his grandchild to come to his aide. There was no longer any holding back their plans, and that was a damn shame, for the next scenario, the one that should have begun two months from now would have to be enacted as soon as possible, not to mention that it could no longer count on that fool Yakuza lord to do anything right.

A long slender finger tapped its owner's chin and the shadow stood in thought. The council had given it absolute authority to do whatever it had to do with the crime lord witch. What the shadow wanted to do with it, was kill him off right here and now, but then, it still needed him, for just a little while longer.

Then an idea hatched in the twisted figure's mind and it smiled. Picking up the phone it dialed Solomon's headquarters, and gave them a unique gift, one that only fate should have given them. After that phone call the shadow tracked down the hunter, who was waiting, as was instructed, in Osaka, Japan, and gave her strict new orders. As soon as it had done that, it left its home and went to an evening dinner, secure in the knowledge that it had done all it could do for the cause.

The hunter licked her chops as she hung up her phone. Finally, after all this waiting, a hunt! And not any hunt, but _the_ hunt! She wasn't sure what her superiors had meant by not killing the devil child quiet yet, just test her powers, but if it was the will of Puruel, the servant and right hand agent of the Lord God, thus being _His_ will, then she would obey.

The young woman knelt in prayer for hours before the statue of her patron angel, her heart racing, and her mind straining to focus on her meditations. She could hardly contain herself from smiling; finally she was going to kill one of Satan's strongest minions, and bring peace to the innocent who were threatened by the girl's shadow, but her very existence. Created by SCIENCE! How obscene! The hunter knew that this creature had to be destroyed, that it was destined to be destroyed just as Lucifer was destined to lose his war and fall forever in the flames of hell. Soon paradise would be upon the world, the Garden of Veinica would be rebuilt, and people would live under the just rule of God's agent, just as it had meant to be before Adam and Eve had listened to the serpent and rebelled against Puruel in the first place. That rebellion that had launched the birth of the vile and sinful Republic, then Empire, and finally the greatest of all the devil's tricks, church of Rome.

But that would all be undone in a series of years from now, starting with the defeat of Robin Sena and the assassination of the pope. She felt sad a little, tears rolling down her eyes. Hunting was all she knew ever since she was discovered by that man, when she was seven years old, forced to fight in those dreadful pits.

Everyone was jealous of her gift, had hated her for it, her family blamed her for something, but her mind would not allow her to remember it, so it must have been their own fault at what had happened. No one up until that fateful day had given her the time of day, and she was moved from house to house, family to family, and facility to facility to be studied and poked and prodded.

But that holy man had discovered her, and brought her out of the shadows, and taught her how to control her powers given to her by the right hand of God himself! Powers that were meant to judge the sinful and make way for an empire of peace and mercy. That's what she had been taught. And she gleefully did her job well, executing those who's dark, hellish gifts would have corrupted mankind's innocence, their purity of race that God had given them and that Puruel had bestowed to guard for eternity.

After her prayers, the hunter went to bed, and slept for the first time since she could remember, her smile never leaving her lips, the mind of her opponent never leaving her thoughts. Robin Sena, Robin Sena, the "devil's child". _I'm not coming for you dear . . . I'm already here._

**_Man this took me a long time to write! It's the 25th of September as I write this. Anywho this should answer some questions, and perhaps leave a lot more to be answered! And damn could I have made this hunter even more messed up! I don't see how. Yet don't think you know all about her just yet, cuss there's a lot more to this nutcase than just the crusty wooden shell. Oh, yeah, I know, I said I'd wait for somebody or at least the majority of you to say what you thought of my character, Kris Anderson, before adding him to the story some more, but with Michael in a coma, and the STN-J short handed, I knew they needed some more resources, so I force volunteered him, er me, um, well you know what I mean LOL. Oh, and I hope all this religious talk isn't bothering anyone, but since Robin and Fr. Juliano are both Catholic, and I myself am one, it played a dominate role in the story. _**

_**Now to reviews: **_

_**Lynx: Well so far I only have your review of my last two chapters, so you're the only one to mention this chapter. Kool, I'm glad that I made your day by uniting them. I was going to wait until chapter ten, but for some reason they really wanted to come out and play, so there they were. And as for your wish to see the hunter and Robin clash, well, they're not going to get into any fights just yet, but they do meet next chapter, so stay tuned! **_


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